


Framed in a Stranger's Speech

by pantheon_of_discord



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Possession, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bedside Pining, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Claire!Cas, Claire's personhood is respected at all times, Dean and Cas are both very very gross, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Established Relationship, M/M, Sex, broad disclaimer: this is absolutely NOT a Claire/Dean fic, but there is a lot of sappy stuff in here, i don't make the rules, issues of vessel consent / ownership taken very seriously by both the author and the characters, it's not my fault that's just how they are sorry, the explicit rating is NOT for when Cas is in Claire's body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-06 09:44:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12208737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantheon_of_discord/pseuds/pantheon_of_discord
Summary: Dean, Sam, and Cas have finally found some normalcy – and despite all odds, happiness – when an average hunt leaves a powerful witch gunning for revenge. When the dust clears, there’s a crater in the bunker’s walls and Cas’ vessel is lying empty on the floor. But Jimmy isn’t the only Novak out there.Cas is alive, but he's trapped in Claire and getting weaker by the hour – and all the while the witch moves ever closer to them, intent on finishing the job. Unable to return to his own body, but unwilling to stay in Claire for long, Cas’ time is running out, and Dean is once again faced with the possibility of losing him.





	1. Uttered by Alien Lips

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting! The day is finally here! Thank you for stopping by! :D
> 
> The biggest and humblest thanks to my beta [Bexy](https://hufflepuffdean.tumblr.com), who is simply the best human to ever human. I would be truly lost without her. And also to [Kari](https://edgarallanrose.tumblr.com), for her encouragement and an always welcome extra set of eyes. Be sure to check out [both](http://deancasbigbang.tumblr.com/post/165330528139/title-we-are-either-here-or-not-here-author-bexy) of [their](http://deancasbigbang.tumblr.com/post/165403148119/title-morning-glory-author-edgarallanrose) DCBBs coming up soon!! Thanks as well to my IRL bestie Grace, who won’t see this but did have to put up with me nattering about this story for six months, and so deserves public acknowledgement and love.
> 
> The gorgeous, dynamic, and truly incredible art is by the amazingly talented [Starmouse123](https://starmouse123.tumblr.com). You were such an awesome partner on this project, and I cannot thank you enough. Check out the [masterpost here](http://starmouse123.tumblr.com/post/166751024825/framed-in-a-strangers-speech-ii-dcbb-2017-ii-art)!
> 
> Also: a huge shoutout to our awesome mods Jojo and Muse! Way to keep this juggernaut of a challenge going. Y'all are the best.
> 
> This story takes place vaguely around Season 12. Or if you like, post-Season 12, but without the mass casualties of 12.23. Don’t try to apply too much logic.

 

It takes exactly fourteen seconds for Dean’s whole universe to implode.

First, there’s a scream that tears at every inch of him, and then a light so bright his eyes are forced shut.

When he opens them again he’s staring down at Cas, lying on his front, motionless on the war room floor. There’s shattered glass and rubble and twisted metal from the staircase all around him.

Dean can hear Sam groaning, gasping out a shocked and devastated “Cas. . . _Cas,_ ” but it’s as if it’s through a wall of thick glass; everything seems muffled and dull, and Dean is still frozen, unmoving just as surely as if the woman’s spell hadn’t been lifted.

Tears shine brightly in Sam’s eyes as he starts crawling through the debris. He reaches out one bloody and violently shaking hand and turns Cas – Cas’ body – over so he’s lying face up. He’s. . . blank. Empty. His eyes are shut but there’s no mistaking it for sleep.

Dean still hasn’t moved.

**DURANGO, CO**

**TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EARLIER**

Dean has been through a heck of a lot of crap in his life, but right now, things are good. His family is alive and healthy, he’s got a home, a _real_ home, and at this precise moment he’s pressed against a motel room wall, playing tonsil hockey with an angel who despite not having wings, seems to have about six hands.

“Cas,” Dean murmurs, pulling away slightly, “you better not be trying to start something we don’t have time to finish.”

“I don’t know, I think I can finish you pretty quickly,” Cas says before leaning back in.

Dean laughs against his mouth, and then predictably, they hear the key turning in the lock.

“Oh, come on guys, we’re working!”

Grinning, Dean turns his head to the door to find Sam with a file folder in one hand and his face in the other.

Cas clears his throat and takes a step back, straightening his coat.

Dean thumps his head back against the wall. “’Kay, as soon as we wrap this case, we’re heading out to hustle enough pool that we can go back to affording a second room.”

“Please,” Sam says, face still covered. “For all our sakes.”

“Quit whining, Sam. And take your damn hand down, we weren’t even doing anything.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Cas grumbles.

Sam groans, but pulls his hand away to glare at them both.

Dean pushes off from the wall. “Alright, _anyway_ , you get anything at county records?”

Sam drops the files on the table. “Yeah, actually. Simon Vesper bought a property three months ago, out in the middle of nowhere.”

Cas moves over to the table and picks up the file. “What kind of property?”

“It looks like just a couple acres and a plain old cabin, about forty-five minutes out of town up into the national forest.” He points a finger at a spot on one of their maps.

“Well, if I was a witch who needed a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way place for ritual sacrifice, that’s what I’d use,” Dean says.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Alright then, let’s gear up,” Dean says, heading for the door. “We drive there, gank us a witch, drive back, and then Sammy takes a nice long time bringing back dinner.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Cas says mildly, following Dean outside.

“God, you guys are so gross.”

The cabin is really more of a shack; it’s overgrown with moss and the roof is sagging under the weight of a fallen branch.

They leave Baby a ways up the road and sneak in on foot. A light is on inside, and Dean can see a shadow drifting back and forth through the warped glass of the front windows.

He signals Sam to move around to the back door, then he and Cas move up to the front, careful of the creaking boards of the porch.

Cas slips his angel blade from his sleeve, and Dean cocks the revolver loaded with witch-killing bullets. They hold for a ten count, then Dean throws the door wide.

What hits Dean first is the amount of blood; the _scent_ of it, and the sickening squelch as he steps onto the rug by the door is almost enough to make him heave. Deep crimson is splashed across the floor, on the walls, and on Simon Vesper himself, who is standing in the centre of the room holding a knife high in one hand. The other winds into the tangled hair of his most recent victim. She’s probably no more than eighteen; there are mascara tear-tracks on her face, and she’s whimpering quietly.

Dean fixes his aim on Vesper’s head. “Drop the knife, _now_ ,” he snarls.

The back door opens across the room and Sam comes in, his own gun up, and Dean feels Cas step beside him.

“You heard him,” Sam says. “Let her go, Simon.”

Vesper quickly brings the knife down to the girl’s throat, his eyes darting between the three of them. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Wasn’t all that hard. Never seen a squirrelier suspect,” Dean says, starting to slowly inch his way closer. “And you’ve been leaving behind a pretty sloppy trail of bodies, pal.”

“Take another step and you’ll have one more on your hands,” Vesper warns, yanking back the girl’s hair.

She cries out, and Dean stills.

“What is all this?” Cas asks, casting disgusted eyes around the blood-covered room. “This ritual, all these murders. What is it you’re trying to achieve?”

Vesper glares at him, almost petulant. “Power, you idiot. What else is _anyone_ ever trying to achieve?”

“Oh, I get it,” says Sam. “You don’t have real juice, do you? You’re just some average shmuck trying to get a mystical leg up.”

Vesper turns a deep, furious shade of red. “How dare you. You have _no idea_ what I am. The – the _power_ I come from.”

“Yeah, power like your mom’s basement,” Dean says. “C’mon, Simon. Fact is, you’re just not very good at all this, are you? Think maybe you should cut your losses. Now _drop the knife_ , and let the girl go.”

Vesper shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t think so. _Abit_!”

He flings out a hand and both Dean and Sam are thrown a few feet backwards, sliding down into the rank, slippery blood on the floor. Cas is unphased though, and he merely cocks an eyebrow before stepping forward.

Vesper’s eyes go wide; he shrinks back, dragging the girl with him. “What the – what the hell are you?”

Cas draws his blade up to eye level, waving it back and forth. “Guess.”

Dean stumbles upright, feet slipping somewhat on the floorboards. He brings his gun back up, and across the room Sam does the same. Dean finds his eyes, and Sam nods once.

Cornered now, Vesper looks between the three of them nervously. “I’m warning you: you kill me, it’s not going to end well for you, I promise you that.”

Cas nods. “We’ll take our chances.”

Sam lunges forward and grabs the girl by the waist, and Dean comes in from the front to wrench the knife away from her neck and out of Vesper’s grip. At the same time Cas shoves Vesper hard with one hand, sending him back against the wall with a crash.

He starts fumbling words in Latin, but Cas simply steps all the way up to him and raises a hand to his forehead.

“No, no, _don’t_!” he cries, but the light spilling out from Cas’ palm starts to pour from Vesper’s eyes as well. A moment later he drops, smoking, to slouch against the wall.

It’s quiet for a few seconds, and then the girl in Sam’s arms starts to sob.

Sam helps her into the back of the Impala, wrapping an old blanket around her shaking shoulders. He closes the door gently, then comes around to where Dean and Cas are unloading their weapons back into the trunk.

“She seems okay, at least physically,” Sam says. “Still, we should drop her at the hospital back in town.”

“Yeah, and then we’re going back to the motel, and _we_ –” he looks at Cas pointedly, “– have dibs on the first shower.” He peels off his blood-soaked jacket and stuffs it loose into the back of the trunk. “Friggin’ _witches_ , man.”

“He’s not in there.”

It’s the first thing to come out of Dean’s mouth, and even as he’s speaking he doesn’t quite know what he means by it.

“Dean, _Dean_ , god I’m – I’m so sorry.” Sam at some point had turned away from the body on the floor and is now in front of Dean, trying to meet his eyes. He raises a hand to grip Dean’s shoulder, fighting back tears.

There’s a ringing in Dean’s ears, and he can feel blood dripping down from his temple, but he still shakes his head. “No, it’s – it’s not him.”

There’s something about Cas’ face, about his whole body really. Somehow Dean knows, understands on some strange, deep level, that he’s not looking at a dead body. He’s looking at a shell.

“Dean,” Sam starts, but Dean shakes his head again, urgently now.

“No Sammy, I mean it’s not _him_. He’s not in there, he’s not _dead_. He’s _gone_.”

Sam’s voice is gentle, placating. “What do you mean, man?”

Dean’s mind is still moving slowly, but after a moment it ticks into place. “Wings, Sam. There’s no wing prints. If he was in there when she,” he falters, “when it happened, there’d be burns from his wings. Look.”

Sam turns back around, takes in the disaster all around them, and Dean watches his eyes sweep the ground beside Cas.

“I’m telling you Sam, he’s not in there, and he’s not dead.”

It’s a ten-hour drive back to the bunker from Durango. They’d allowed themselves a bit of a sleep in, so by the time they get back home it’s almost 7:00pm.

Dean dumps their bags on the war room table. “Alright, I’ll start on dinner.” He turns to Cas and winks. “Your turn to do laundry, sunshine.”

Cas shrugs his trenchcoat and suit jacket off his shoulders and frowns, throwing a distasteful eye on the bags. “Why does it always seem to be my turn after a particularly messy hunt? First the ghouls, and now this.”

“Just the way the cookie crumbles,” Dean replies cheerfully. “Sucks to be you.” But he leans forward to kiss the scowl off Cas’ face. “I’ll make you lasagna.”

Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean has one golden moment to appreciate Cas’ softening smile before the air explodes.

The heavy iron door blasts in from the balcony, red-hot and twisted, and crashes into the table, shattering the glass top. Dean sees Cas dive towards the kitchen hallway, and then there’s a hand fisting the collar of Dean’s jacket as Sam yanks him back underneath the staircase. It’s just in time, because then there’s another concussive blast and great chunks of stone and metal from the back wall shoot forward into the room. Dean throws up his arms to protect his face as pieces of rippled blue glass slice through his sleeves.

Then it becomes hard to breathe. It’s as if there’s a weight on his chest, on his shoulders; or maybe it’s something squeezing him, tight and brutal across his whole body. Whatever force it is, it’s bearing down on every inch of him and Dean finds he can’t even speak. He turns panicked eyes to Sam, and in the next second they’re both lifted, floating slow and steady through the air and across the room. He can’t turn his head, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Cas rising too, suspended a few feet above the ground near the bottom of the mangled staircase. He seems held there, frozen eerily in place with his feet dangling, but Sam and Dean are forced backwards until they’re both pressed against the stone pillars on either side of the library steps.

He can feel her before he sees her.

The crushing pressure on his ribs gets even worse, if possible, and the air itself seems to crackle. He feels cold; it’s not the skin-deep chill that comes from a ghost, but a cold that seems to emanate from _inside_ him, spreading out from his own heart. Then a sound from the doorway draws his attention and his eyes travel upwards.

A woman steps through the twisted remnants of the doorframe on the balcony. Her skin is a light brown and her hair is long and grey, falling across a loose white dress and cloak. Her eyes are imperious, dark, as they sweep across the room, gaze landing heavy first on Sam, then Dean. They stop on Cas.

Dean’s heart is in his throat, his fear paramount. Whatever she is, she’s something deep and pure and very, very old, and they are very, very screwed.

They carry him down into the infirmary. For some reason Dean had expected him to feel light, like without Cas in there Jimmy’s body would just float away, but the truth was he weighed just as much as every other corpse Dean and Sam had had to haul around over the years.

Together they lie him on one of the beds along the wall, and then Dean keeps moving, ignoring his own injuries and walking over to the cabinet to pull out needles and an IV. The shock still isn’t quite wearing off, but right now Dean’s running on autopilot and that little voice of certainty that knows Cas is still alive out there.

“Dean,” Sam starts again, but Dean doesn’t let him finish.

“Sam, listen to me. I’m telling you, she did something – I don’t know what the hell it was, but she didn’t kill him.” He moves back over to the bed to start hooking up the line with shaking fingers, not looking once at Cas’ face. “Look, this isn’t some grief-stricken, hopeless, shock spiral thing, okay? I’m not –”

“Dean, slow down, it’s okay,” says Sam. “You’re right – I’m with you on this. He’s alive.”

Dean stops working, pausing his fumbled movements to look up and meet Sam’s eyes.

“I was just going to say, there’s a life support system in here too. It’s old school, but it should still work fine. We should hook the body into it too, not just the IV.”

Maybe it’s his little brother’s unwavering support, or maybe the devastatingly easy way he’d referred to Cas as ‘the body,’ but for some reason, _this_ is what gets him, and tears well up in Dean’s eyes. He doesn’t let them fall though, just sucks in a breath and nods. “Yeah.”

They work in silence. Sam takes over the needles, because Dean’s fingers are still shaking too hard. He fights to get himself back under control as he starts hooking up the tubes and wires of the life support system - which he thinks has to be at least partially mystical. He’s gentle, running careful hands over the body he has come to know even better than his own.

“Hey, did you see this?”

Dean looks over from one of the ancient monitors. Sam is holding Cas’ arm, but his eyes are fixed on the back of his hand. There’s a strange, circular symbol he hadn’t noticed before, black like a scorch mark.

Dean frowns and walks around to the opposite side of the bed to lift up the other arm. “Here too. Same symbol. You seen it before?”

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

Grasping at the one clue they’ve been given, Dean starts to sweep critical eyes over the body until he sees a shadow beneath the collar. Stepping up to the head of the hospital bed, Dean reaches down and starts carefully tugging Cas’ tie loose.

He tries not to think about the last time he did this.

Dean pulls the tie all the way off and undoes the top two buttons, revealing another identical mark – this one the size of a fist and dead centre on his chest. “What the hell, man.”

Sam moves up to examine the symbol too. “It’s gotta be a remnant of whatever spell she used, whatever did this to him.”

“She exorcised him,” Dean says, and Sam looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “Hey, we’ve seen it before. Those British ass-clowns had that egg thing we used on Lucifer.”

Sam inclines his head. “True. And there’s Alastair, too.”

“What?” Dean asks sharply, as an old, instinctual chill of fear runs down his spine. He pushes it away.

Sam looks apologetic. “Back when I killed Alastair. When I got there, you were out cold, and Alastair was trying to exorcise Cas. It was Latin, but I’d never heard it before. Never have again.”

“This wasn’t that, though,” Dean shakes his head, remembering the woman’s voice, and the words rolling like thunder off her tongue. “It felt. . . old. _She_ felt old. And what she was saying, it wasn’t Latin.”

“No,” Sam agrees. “I think it was Hebrew.”

“Hebrew. Great,” says Dean, leaning back to half-sit on the empty bed behind him and bringing a hand up to his face.

“Hey, we’ll figure it out,” Sam says. “We’ve got a Hebrew exorcism and this symbol – that’s more than we usually get.”

Dean doesn’t respond.

“We’ll get him back, man.”

“How?” Dean asks, pulling his hand away. “We got no clue where he is right now. Heaven’s been on lockdown, and even if the spell managed to bust through the barriers and send him there. . .” Dean swallows. “He’s not exactly popular upstairs. We don’t know what the angels might do if he got himself stuck up there.”

“Look, Dean, I’m worried too. But Cas’ll be fine. He’s _always_ fine.”

Dean steps forward. “Sam, you know damn well he is _not_ always fine. And if he were fine right now, he’d be back in his body.”

Sam looks ready to argue back, but he’s interrupted by the loud ringing from Dean’s pocket.

Dean pulls out his phone and grimaces at the caller ID. “Hey, Jody. Look sorry, it’s really not a good time right now.”

“Listen, I wouldn’t have called, Dean, but I need your help. It’s Claire, there’s something wrong with her, something not. . . normal.”

Dean feels hope flicker in his chest, and he pulls the phone down from his ear and hits the button for speakerphone. “What kind of something?”

Sam leans in, gaze going sharp.

“I don’t know, exactly.” Jody’s normally steady voice is wavering. “I got home, and I found her unconscious on the kitchen floor, and she was sort of mumbling something. I was going to take her to the ER but then she sort of, well, glowed. For a second.”

Dean’s heart leaps. “Glowed? Like, a white light?”

“Yes!” Jody says urgently. “Do you know what this is?”

Sam meets his eyes, and Dean feels his pulse pounding. “Maybe. Hopefully. If we’re right, it means she should be okay.”

Sam walks around the foot of the hospital bed and leans over the phone. “We’re on our way now, Jody. You said she was saying something?”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t make it out.”

“Okay. Stay with her, keep her comfortable, and if she says anything else, try to write it down best you can.”

“Okay,” Jody says.

“Sit tight, Jody. We’ll be there in,” Dean checks his watch. “Give us four hours.” He hangs up the phone.

Sam looks at him, eyes wide. “You think?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just casts one final look at the hospital bed and heads for the hall, Sam right behind.

“Think he’ll,” Sam stumbles, “think _it_ will be safe here? The door’s all blown to hell.”

“Well no, but there’s not really anything we can do about it, Sam. This place is warded to the nines, and she just busted right in here anyway. We just gotta hope she’s done with him.”

“Four hours, that’s pushing it, even for us,” Sam says as the two of them jog back out to the garage.

Dean sets his jaw. “I almost told her three and a half.”

The drive is mostly silent. Sam doesn’t try to talk, and Dean doesn’t even turn the radio on.

He should’ve known things were going to come crashing down on them again. They always do. Dean gets just a few painfully short months of the first real happiness he’s known, and then this garbage life comes in to yank the rug out from under him.

It feels so outrageously unfair that he wants to scream.

He notices he’s gripping the steering wheel tight enough his knuckles have turned white, so he forces a long, slow breath. They have a lead now, they have the barest trace of _hope_. They’re going to get to Sioux Falls and figure this out.

And one day, Dean will be able to close his eyes and not see Cas’ lifeless body on the floor and feel like his insides have been scooped out.

Sam breaks the silence an hour or so in. “You think this is what he meant?”

Dean glances over briefly. “Who?”

“Simon. He said that if we killed him, it wouldn’t end well for us.”

Dean makes a face. “He was a kid, a punk-ass little wannabe trying to save his own skin.”

“Yeah, he was, but he said he _came from_ _power_. That woman, whoever she was – you had to feel it: she _was_ power. I thought at first she was a god or something, but she could’ve been a witch.”

Dean frowns, considering. “If she was, she’s gotta be one of the strongest we’ve come across.”

Sam nods. “We should call Rowena, after. . . after we get to Claire.”

Dean nods, then presses down harder on the accelerator. They don’t speak again for the rest of the drive.

Dean doesn’t bother knocking.

“Jody?” he calls, stepping into the living room.

Her voice carries down the hall. “Back here.”

They hurry down to Claire’s bedroom. Jody rises from a chair pulled up to the bedside, where Claire is unconscious on the pillows, blankets pulled up around her.

“Hey, boys, thanks for coming so fast,” she says.

Dean barely spares her a glance, he just moves around to take her seat by the bed.

“Yeah, thanks for calling. Really,” says Sam, staying in the doorway.

Jody steps over to him and holds out a notepad. “You asked me to write down anything she said. I don’t know if I got it right, but she’s repeated it a couple times now. Sounded like _gi bransg._ ”

Dean looks briefly at Sam, relief flowing through him.

Sam gives him a shaky smile back, then takes the notepad from her and studies the words. “Yeah, it’s Enochian. And it’s good news, believe me. It means something like ‘you are protected’ or ‘you are covered.’”

“Safe,” Dean says, not looking over at them. “It means ‘you are safe.’ Cas. C’mon buddy, wake up.”

“Wait, what? Cas? As in Castiel?” Jody asks, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Dean ignores her and reaches out to shake Claire’s arm gently.

“What the hell’s going on?” Jody asks.

“It’s complicated, we’ll explain it all later,” Sam says. “But we think – we hope – that Cas is in Claire right now.”

“‘In’ her, you mean _possessing_ her?” Jody asks, anger tinting her voice. “And this is a good thing?”

“Sam,” Dean warns.

“I know Jody, like I said, complicated,” Sam says. “We’ll explain, I promise.”

Dean leans in closer to the bed. “Cas, it’s me. Wake up.”

Claire’s brow scrunches up, and a very familiar frown crosses her face.

Dean holds his breath as dark blue eyes slowly open. They glow brightly for a moment, then travel over.

“Dean?” Cas asks, and Dean thinks he could cry.

 

 

Cas begins struggling upright, and Dean throws a hand to his shoulder.

“Whoa hey, easy tiger,” he says quickly. “Stay down for a second.”

Cas slumps back against the pillows, as if even that brief attempt at movement had drained him. “Where am I?”

“Sioux Falls.”

Slowly, Cas pulls an arm out from under the covers and examines his long, painted fingernails with interest. “It worked.”

Dean huffs. “Yeah, assuming you were trying to go for the blonde look, I’d say it worked. You okay in there?”

Cas grimaces. “Not really, but better than I expected to be.”

Dean leans forward and puts his elbows on the bed. His head drops down and he takes in a long, shuddering breath that quickly turns into an hysterical laugh.

This is hardly an ideal situation, but for the first time since the woman had blasted into the bunker, he feels like he can breathe.

After a while Dean tilts his head back up to find Cas looking at him gently. “What about Claire?”

Cas nods. “She’s sleeping right now, but she’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Dean had almost forgotten Jody and Sam were in the room. He looks over to the door; Sam looks almost as relieved as Dean feels, but Jody has her arms crossed and she’s eyeing Cas warily.

Cas nods to her in acknowledgement. “Jody. It’s good to finally meet you, despite the circumstances. Yes, Claire is fine. Well, she’s pretty annoyed with me right now,” he amends. “But she’s safe, I promise. I’ll give control over to her in a minute, she can tell you herself.”

Jody looks at him dubiously, then cocks an eyebrow at Sam. He nods, and she seems at least partially mollified.

Cas looks back at Dean. “First though: what happened to the witch?”

Sam steps a little further forward into the room. “Zapped out before we could do much of anything. She wasn’t all that interested in us. But she was definitely a witch, huh?”

Cas nods, closing his eyes. “Yes. An immensely old and powerful one.”

“She went right for you, man,” Dean says. “Sam thinks maybe she’s what Simon Vesper warned us about. Maybe she knew him or something.”

Cas opens his eyes again. “It could be. Although if she was looking for revenge I don’t know why she would do this – exorcising me instead of killing me. . .” he trails off, then looks back and forth between Sam and Dean. “What happened to my body?”

“It’s back home in the infirmary,” Sam says, and he throws a nervous glance at Dean. “God, man, before we figured out what happened, we thought you’d died.”

Cas looks over, and Dean holds his eyes steadily.

Sam clears his throat after a moment. “We got it hooked up to the life support system.”

“Figured it’d be easier for you to hop back in if you didn’t have a ton of repair work to do first,” Dean says quietly.

Cas gives him a half-smile. “Yeah, you’re right, that’ll make things easier. I don’t think I’m strong enough to try yet, though.”

“It’s not just that though, man,” Dean shakes his head. “The witch, whatever she did, whatever spell she used, it did something to your body. There are these symbols we didn’t recognize, on your chest and the backs of your hands.”

Cas frowns. “What kind of symbol?”

“I dunno,” Sam says. “Kind of a circle, with some lines inside. We didn’t get a chance to look into it before Jody called.”

“We should get back there,” Cas nods, Claire’s blonde hair bobbing. “I’ll have a better idea what she did after I see, well, myself.”

“‘Kay, good, works for me,” Dean says. “We’ll leave first thing.”

Cas turns to look at Jody. “I’ll give control back to Claire now, but she’ll be weak for a while. Don’t let her push herself too hard; the less she exerts herself, the stronger I’ll be, and the quicker I’ll be able to leave her.”

Jody bites her lip. “Look, granted, I’m playing catch-up on this one. But didn’t Dean just say this witch did something to you? What if you can’t go back? What happens to Claire?”

Cas offers a small smile. “Even if I can’t go back to my body –”

“You mean her father’s body.”

Sam looks uncomfortable. Dean throws Jody a reproachful look, but keeps silent.

Cas takes a beat before nodding solemnly. “Yes. Jimmy’s body. Even if I can’t return to it, I will leave Claire and. . . figure something else out.” Dean frowns and looks over sharply, but Cas ignores him. “I’ve taken enough from Claire. I promise, this is temporary.”

“Cas, what do you mean ‘figure something else out?’ What else can –”

“I should rest now,” Cas cuts him off. He fixes Dean with a steady gaze. “Make sure Claire takes it easy too.”

Dean wants to argue, but before he can even open his mouth Cas’ eyes glow blue again. They close tightly, then slowly blink back open.

“Hey, old man.”

Dean wipes away the anxious frown on his face. “Hey kid.” He smiles, then stands quickly to make way for Jody, already charging around the foot of the bed.

“Are you okay?” she asks, ignoring the chair and taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “In any pain?” She places the back of her hand on Claire’s forehead as Dean moves over to the doorway. Sam reaches a hand up, dropping it on his shoulder in a reassuring pat.

“No, I’m cool. I just feel kind of, I dunno. Heavy. Like I’m under like, thirty blankets.”

Jody searches Claire’s face. “And Castiel, he’s. . . in there?”

Claire frowns, concentrating. “Yeah. He’s kind of. . . tucking himself away, I guess. It’s like he’s trying to stay out of the way.” She shifts a little under the covers. “Feels weird, it’s not like last time, when I was a kid. He’s so weak.”

“Weak?” Dean asks, worry flaring hot in his stomach, and Sam tightens the grip on his shoulder.

Claire turns her eyes up to him. “Yeah. It’s worse than when he came to me in the kitchen earlier.”

“And you let him in? He asked first?” Jody presses.

Claire rolls her eyes and nods.

Dean feels a flicker of annoyance. “He didn’t force his way in, Jody. It’s not a rule they can break if they want to. It’s biology, or whatever the angel version of biology is. Without permission, he physically _can’t_ possess her.”

“It’s okay, Jody.” Claire nudges Jody with her knee. “And he knows it’s not forever.”

“Claire,” Sam starts, “you get the lowdown on what’s going on?”

“More or less,” she says. “Some scary-ass witch kicked him out of my dad’s body and he needed a place to crash.” She shrugs. “I got room at the inn.”

Dean feels a lump in his throat. “Claire, thank you. Saying yes, after everything you’ve been through – that can’t have been easy.”

She just shrugs again and offers a small, tired smile.

Jody straightens up and stands from the bed. “Okay, it’s late. Castiel told us that you need rest.”

“Yeah, I’m – I’m kinda wiped,” Claire says.

“You get some sleep,” Dean says, then turns to Sam and Jody. “One of us will stay with you; we’ll take it in shifts until morning.”

“I got first watch,” Sam says. “I’m gonna put together some hex bags, strong as I can make ‘em. It’s not much, but if our witch comes sniffing around again hopefully they’ll be enough to hide us.” He heads for the hallway. “Just gimme a sec to get the stuff from the trunk.”

Claire nods and closes her eyes again, settling back against the pillows on a long, exhausted sigh.

Jody flips on a lamp and turns off the overhead light, then jerks her head at Dean, leading him out into the hall.

“Okay look, I know I was being kind of a hard-ass in there,” she says, voice hushed. “But I’ve had a front row seat to the mountain of trauma that poor kid has been buried under since Castiel walked away with her dad’s body.”

Dean closes his eyes and nods. “I get it, Jody. I know you’re just looking out for her. But listen to me on this.” He opens his eyes and looks at her firmly. “Outside of Sam, there is _no one_ in the world I trust more than Cas. He won’t ever let anything happen to her, I promise you that.”

After a long moment, Jody nods. “Alright.” She checks her watch, then indicates a door down the hall. “Alex is still away at school; you can crash in her room until Sam finishes the first watch. I’ll take over for you around five.”

Dean gives her a small smile and reaches up to grasp her arm in thanks, then heads over into the bedroom. He flops down on the mattress, simultaneously exhausted and far too wired to sleep. When he closes his eyes the image of Cas’ body is still there, imprinted in a way he knows will be permanent.

Cas is right there, next door. He’s not great, but he’s alive. He’d spoken, he’d looked out at Dean through Claire’s eyes, and for now that’s going to have to be enough.

Sam shakes him awake a few hours later, and then conks out on Alex’s bed the second Dean stands up. Yawning, and somehow even more tired than he was before lying down, Dean shuffles down the hall to take up the vigil by Claire’s bedside. She’s still asleep, breathing steadily with her cheek pressed down into a pillow.

Dean spends the next few hours quiet and unmoving, his eyes fixed on her. On them.

“I’ve been reliably informed that watching people sleep is ‘creepy.’”

Dean startles, then smiles softly, leaning in as Cas blinks his eyes open. “Hey. How’re you feeling?”

Cas nods. “Still tired, but stronger.” He shuffles carefully up in the bed, and Dean helps manoeuvre the pillows against the headboard. “Claire still needs to take it easy, though.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, quirking his lips slightly. “You wanna be careful there. You’re already on Jody’s bad side.”

“I like her.” Cas smiles. “I’m glad Claire has someone like Jody watching out for her.” He pauses then, and runs his eyes over Dean’s face. “How are you doing?”

Dean scoffs. “You shouldn’t be thinking about me right now, man.”

“I’m always thinking about you.”

A glow of warmth spreads out in Dean’s chest and he casts his eyes down, bringing a hand up to run over his mouth. “God, Cas, when I saw you lying there. . .” He looks back up. “I was so damn scared.”

Cas doesn’t reply, just reaches out and pulls Dean’s free hand over to rest on the bed beside him. He squeezes hard.

Dean looks down at their clasped hands and chuckles. “Claire is _so_ gonna make fun of us for this. Couple of old saps.”

“I’m willing to risk it,” Cas says.

Dean looks into Cas’ softly smiling face. “This is so weird, man. You look like. . . you.”

“I am me.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “No, I mean _you_. Old you, normal you. It’s the eyes.”

Cas shrugs. “Well, Claire is Jimmy’s daughter. It makes sense she looks like him.”

“No, it’s not that. Well okay, yeah, it is. But that’s not what I mean.” Dean runs his thumb along the small, thin fingers of Claire’s hand. “It’s your expressions and, I dunno, the way you hold yourself, and how you talk.”

Cas tilts his head, and Dean grins. “See, right there, you’ve got the ‘humans are so strange’ squint going on.”

Cas laughs softly.

Dean studies his face. “What you told Jody, about leaving Claire. . .” Dean trails off, and Cas looks away, not meeting his eyes. “What, you thought I forgot about that?”

Cas speaks down to the bedspread. “Like you said, we don’t know what the witch did to me yet. With any luck, those marks you saw are just incidental to her spell.” Finally, he looks back up. “But we may have to face the possibility that whatever she did is permanent.”

Dean had been expecting this, but denial still pulses through him. “No, Cas. We’re gonna fix this. There’s always something.”

Cas nods. “I hope so. But if there isn’t. . . well, this could be it for me.”

“The hell does that mean?” Dean asks angrily. “What happens if you can’t go back to your vessel?”

Cas looks away again. “I can’t return to heaven. It’s locked, and I wouldn’t be permitted there anyway. I’d just. . . let go.”

“Okay, and then what? You just float around here, like a ghost?” Panic starts to build up again in Dean’s chest.

“Not like a ghost, no. And I couldn’t stay with you,” Cas says. He cracks an ironic smile. “You remember our first conversation?”

Dean furrows his brow. “You mean the barn?”

“No,” Cas says. “Before that. The gas station.”

Understanding hits, along with the memories of static and noise and shattered glass.

Cas nods. “That kind of energy, _my_ energy, set free on Earth like that; it’s a destructive force. I would need to stay far away from anything and any _one_ I could potentially harm.”

Anger and fear are pounding through him now and he pulls his hand free from Cas.’ “No way, man; not happening. You are not going to be all disembodied and living in exile.”

“It’s my only option, Dean,” Cas responds sadly. “I can’t stay in Claire. I’ve already destroyed her life, I can’t take any more from her. You know that.”

“Of course I know that, Cas. But there’s other people out there, other vessels,” he says desperately.

“And what?” Cas asks, sounding angry now too. “Walk away with the body of some innocent person for my own selfish reasons? Do to someone else what I did to Jimmy? To Jimmy’s family?”

Rationally, Dean knows he’s right, and he looks away to glare at the wall.

“To say nothing of you and I,” Cas continues, and Dean turns back to him. “We could no more be together were I in another occupied vessel than we could with me possessing Claire.”

“So we can’t have sex or anything. We can survive without sex, Cas! Hell, we did for the first like, eight years we knew each other! It doesn’t mean you have to just, let go and float away or whatever!”

“Dean,” Cas says, gently now.

Dean keeps going, shaking his head. “No, look Cas, you don’t have to take over somebody’s life, you can do what Ruby 2.0 did.” Dean clenches his teeth at the mere thought of her, but presses on. “We’ll head down to the coma ward and you can go vessel shopping, find somebody whose soul has already left the building.”

“Perhaps,” Cas says softly. “But that someone could be a ninety-year-old woman.”

Dean pauses. “Well, I’ve told you about my thing for Blanche Devereaux. We’ll adjust.”

“It could be a five-year-old child.”

Dean holds his gaze another moment, then draws in a shaky breath and drops his face into his palms. “I know, buddy. I know. I’m sorry. But I’m selfish, Cas. Always have been.”

He looks back up and Cas smiles at him. “You are perhaps the least selfish person I have ever known, Dean.”

Shaking his head, Dean grits his teeth. “Okay, you know what? None of this matters right now. I am _not_ gonna lose you, Cas, I am _not_ going to let this goddamn life take one more thing away from me. We’re gonna fix this; we’re gonna get back home, we’ll figure out whatever it is the witch did, and we’ll get you back in your body. _Your_ body. The one with dark hair and a scratchy beard and the most perfect ass I have ever had the _privilege_ to grope.”

Cas rolls his eyes, and Dean finally smiles again. “Ah, and see that? That face? That’s the ‘Dean Winchester you’re a moron but I love you anyway’ face. One of my favourites.”

Cas looks at him fondly, then Dean hears a noise behind him. He turns up to find Jody hovering in the doorway. He wonders how long she’s been standing there.

“Sorry,” she says, looking back and forth between them uncomfortably before stepping forward and setting a coffee mug down on the bedside table. “Didn’t want to interrupt, but it’s my turn to take over, Dean. You should try to get some more shut-eye before we take off.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, thanks Jody.” He reaches out and grasps Cas’ hand once, then lets it go and stands. “You should sleep some more too, buddy.”

“I will,” Cas says with a nod.

Dean smiles at Jody and she pats his arm gently before sitting down in the chair. He throws one last look at Cas, then heads out to the living room to crash on the couch.


	2. Lying Spirits Perplex Us Sore

Dean just dozes for the next few hours, light beginning to stream through the wide front windows. Half-awake, he starts to hear Sam lumbering around in the kitchen, and then about ten minutes later murmured voices coming from Claire’s room. He heaves himself upright with a deep sigh just as Claire emerges from the hall, Jody supporting her with an arm around her back and a hand grasping her elbow.

“Hey, mornin,’” Dean says, rolling his stiff neck. “You feeling okay?”

Claire throws him a look. “Would everybody quit asking me that? I’m _fine_. I just need breakfast, like, now.”

Dean chuckles. “Sam’s in the kitchen; I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s been in there a while so he’d better have something ready. Just so you know though, you eat his cooking at your own risk.”

“Noted,” Claire says, and she and Jody both start walking to the kitchen.

Dean makes to follow them, but Jody waves him back down. “Stay there,” she says. “I’ll bring you something. You still look pretty bushed.”

Dean nods gratefully, then sinks back down and starts struggling into his boots.

Jody returns a few minutes later with two mugs of coffee. She hands him one and sits down carefully beside him. “Well, you were right about Sam and breakfast. Coffee’s all you get for now.”

“That’s fine,” Dean says before taking a sip. “Usually all I need anyway.”

They’re silent for a moment before Jody turns her head. “So, I maybe, accidentally. . . completely on purpose was eavesdropping on you earlier,” she says, and Dean raises his eyebrows. “But uh, you and Castiel, huh?”

Dean gives her a half smile and shrugs. “Yeah, me and him,” he says softly.

“Is that. . . new?”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Depends what you mean. We’ve only been. . .”

“ _Boyfriends_?” Jody asks, and Dean makes a face.

“ _Together_ ,” he corrects, “like, figured-our-shit-out together, for I dunno, a couple months now. But. . . it’s been there for both of us for pretty much ever.”

Jody’s eyebrows are high on her forehead. “Huh. The things you learn about a guy,” she says, nodding. “I mean, Claire told me once that she thought you guys had a ‘thing,’ but I thought she was kidding.”

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. “Nope, right on the money with that one.”

“Yeah, guess so.” Her eyes turn pitying. “I’m really sorry, Dean. I can’t imagine what this must be like for you right now.”

Dean gives her a bitter smile. “Just the lives we lead, Jody,” he deflects.

A knowing look crosses her face. “Come on, kiddo. This is heavyweight angst material.”

“I’m fine, Jody, really. Just another day at the office,” he says.

He’s saved from having to respond further by Sam and Claire coming into the living room. She looks a little stronger, supporting her own weight, but she lets Sam help her down into the La-Z-Boy.

Sam hands her a granola bar and turns to the couch. “Sorry again about your frying pan, Jody,” he says with a grimace.

Dean snorts, and Jody just shakes her head.

All of a sudden Claire reaches out for Sam’s coffee cup. She starts drinking it, tilting her head all the way back until the cup is drained.

Jody frowns. “Claire, what are you doing? You hate coffee.”

“I know.” Claire glares at the empty mug.

Sam chuckles. “You might hate coffee, but Cas loves it. Maybe it’s him bleeding through a bit.”

“This is bizarre,” she says, eyes still looking down. “It’s as disgusting as ever, but I totally want more.”

“We’ll get you a to-go cup,” Dean says, standing from the couch. “But we should hit the road.”

Jody leaves the room to pack a couple things into bags for the two of them, and Dean and Sam help Claire into Baby’s front seat.

Jody hands him Claire’s backpack then climbs into her truck with Sam, and Dean slides behind the wheel and pulls out from the house. Bending down slowly, Claire fishes through her pack to pull out her iPod and headphones, and a few seconds later Dean hears tinny pop music playing.

“Oh come on, what the hell is that crap?” he asks.

Claire narrows her eyes. “Anything’s better than your geezer music.”

Dean drops his jaw in mock-affront and cranks the volume dial on the stereo. “Excuse _you_ ; John Helliwell is one of the most accomplished musicians rock has ever known,” he yells, and she rolls her eyes. Half-looking at the road, Dean reaches over and yanks the headphone cord free. “You know what? You are getting an _education_ today, grasshopper. Buckle in.”

He looks at her and grins, but then she lets out a small gasp. Her eyes fly shut and she throws out a hand to the dash to support herself.

Concern flaring up, Dean turns the volume back down and eases off the gas, preparing to pull over. “Hey, whoa, you okay? Talk to me.”

“I’m fine, it’s fine,” she says. She takes a deep breath in and opens her eyes again. “It was just Castiel, I think. There was this, I dunno, this wave or something. Like a head rush, but everywhere.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. He just. . .” Claire looks up to meet Dean’s eyes. “He really loves you.”

Dean looks at her a moment, then back out to the road. “Yeah. I know.”

They’re speeding over the Nebraska state line, just slightly faster than Dean knows is safe, when he feels her again. The awful squeezing sensation returns, as does the cold seeping through his chest. He starts to cast searching, panicked eyes out the windows, and when he turns in his seat he can tell that Claire’s felt it too.

“Damnit, so much for our hex bags,” he grits out. “Keep your eyes open.”

He needn’t have worried about looking too hard. In the blink of an eye she’s there, standing two hundred feet in front of them on the long, straight stretch of Midwest backroad and instantly recognizable by her flowing white cape.

Dean slams down hard on the brake, Baby skidding against the asphalt. Claire’s eyes are wide as she braces a hand on the dashboard again, and behind him in the mirror Dean can see Jody struggling to stop as well.

After a loud and prolonged screeching of tires, they finally come to a halt a mere car length away from the witch.

She hadn’t moved once, hadn’t even flinched.

Dean reaches behind himself, thankful he’d thought to keep his gun stocked with the witch-killing bullets. “Get down, Claire,” he says.

“But –”

“Get down, and no matter what happens you s _tay in this car_ ,” he growls, then opens the car door and points his gun directly at the witch’s heart. Behind him he hears the doors of Jody’s truck open as well, followed by the cocking of two more guns.

“Listen up, Saruman,” he yells over to the witch. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but these guns are loaded with enough nasty witch poison to take even _you_ down. So how about you back the hell up and let us pass.”

Her eyes bore into Dean’s, then travel over to the front seat of the Impala, where Claire has sunk down out of sight. “You protect the angel,” she says, voice pitched low and lilting. “The _murderer._ ”

“What, you mean Simon?” Sam calls, and the witch turns to face him now instead. “Is that what this is about?”

She doesn’t answer, but the tight feeling around Dean’s ribs increases.

“Simon was the murderer, sweetheart,” Dean says. “He was sacrificing humans, trying to steal power for himself.”

“He was my _son_ ,” she says, and real thunder rumbles overhead. “He was my _child_ , and now he is _dead_ , smote by the angel you all seek to defend.”

Realizing just how screwed they are, Dean looks over quickly to Sam and Jody, then back to the witch again.

She slowly brings a hand up in front of her, palm towards the Impala.

“Don’t,” Dean warns, adjusting his grip on his gun. The witch ignores him.

“I don’t know why you’re still alive, angel, but I will not let you live this time.” There’s a sound like a gunshot as Baby’s windshield fractures, cracks spidering out from the passenger side.

Dean doesn’t hesitate further; he just starts firing. Jody and Sam do the same, all of them unloading poison bullets directly at the witch. She doesn’t react; none of the bullets even hit her. It’s as if they’re melting in mid-air before they get within a few feet of her.

A silence falls as all three of them stop shooting, their clips empty. The witch turns from the windshield to run her eyes over them, and then just like before Dean’s immobilized and lifted into the air.

Slowly, she draws him closer. Sam and Jody are floating over too, and then they all freeze, several feet away from her.

Up close, Dean can see the witch’s high cheekbones and the well-defined muscles in her outstretched arm. Her dark eyes narrow in on him. “I had no quarrel with you. But you protect the one who murdered my son.”

He can’t breathe. The pressure in his chest is so tight now that no matter how Dean tries, he can’t force in any air. He can hear Sam and Jody struggling and gasping beside him as well, and just as his vision starts to go black around the edges he hears Baby’s door open.

The magic keeping him suspended lifts, and he drops down onto the pavement, Sam and Jody beside him. Gasping for breath and terrified, he turns over to the car to see not Claire, but Cas, back in control and walking towards them across the pavement.

The witch has dropped her hand, and she stares intently at Cas. “You were meant to die.”

“Sorry,” he says, and stretches out his own arm. “I’ve never been very good at that.”

There’s a look in Cas’ eye that Dean knows all too well, and he hisses urgently at Jody and Sam. “Shut your eyes, _now_.”

Dean looks away himself just in time, but he can still see the burning white flare of grace behind his eyelids. The witch cries out, there’s a sound like lightning, and then it’s quiet again.

He whips his head back up as Cas sways on his feet, then collapses onto the scorched pavement.

“Cas, _Cas_ , damnit,” Dean stumbles to his feet and staggers over, only to drop back down again at Cas’ side and haul him into his arms. “Cas, look at me.”

Two eyes scrunch tight then flutter open, only it’s Claire who looks back out at him. “I was gonna wait in the car, I promise,” she mumbles.

There’s scuffling footsteps behind him and Jody comes in close, reaching down and smoothing a hand through Claire’s hair. “That was a pretty fun light show,” she says gently. “You okay?”

Claire nods. “Yeah, _I’m_ fine, just totally bagged again. Castiel did all the work.” She glances over at Dean. “He’s kind of out right now.”

“Out?” Dean asks worriedly.

“Yeah. That big blast or whatever, he used up pretty much all the strength he had.” She starts to struggle up, and Dean and Jody both help her stand. She’s weak-kneed and unsteady, so Jody wraps an arm around her waist.

Sam steps forward, glancing around the road. “The witch, is she dead?”

Claire shakes her head. “No. But he hurt her. Hopefully enough to slow her down for a while.”

“Alright. We’re still more than three hours out; let’s get back on the road,” Dean says, swallowing down his fear for Cas.

Jody half-carries Claire back into the Impala and they pull away from the blast mark on the road, Dean driving as fast as he dares with a shattered windshield.

Claire sleeps the rest of the way home, while Dean throws anxious glances across the bench. She doesn’t wake when they pull into the garage, so he walks around to the passenger door and lifts her up to carry her inside while Sam grabs the bags.

Halfway down the hall he feels stirring in his arms. “Well, this is nice.”

Dean stops moving, and Jody and Sam nearly walk into him. Cas seems half-awake, his eyes tired and slightly hazy.

“Cas, you stupid bastard, you okay?” Dean asks.

“Mmm, I’m quite comfortable right now, actually.”

“ _Cas_.”

Cas heaves out a long sigh. “No, I’m worse. I. . . overextended myself fighting the witch.”

“ _Damnit_ , man,” Dean says tiredly.

“You’re welcome,” Cas snipes back, then shifts against his chest.

Slowly, Dean lowers him down to stand but keeps one arm slung across his back.

Sam comes around to smile at Cas. “Thanks for the save back there, man.”

Cas gives a small smile and nods. “Infirmary. Let’s see what kind of shape I’m in.”

Dean helps him walk the rest of the way down the hall until they come up to the blown-apart doorway. They gingerly step over piles of concrete and twisted rebar, then emerge at the top of the stairs.

“Holy _crap_ ,” Jody says, mouth hanging open. “Why the hell do I let you boys crash my house when you’ve got this place to come home to?”

“Yeah, you should see it when it’s _not_ covered in rubble,” Sam says. He comes up to Cas’ other side and helps Dean walk him carefully down the staircase, mindful of the warped metal and occasional missing steps.

Eventually they make it into the infirmary. Dean had been bracing himself for the sight of Cas’ body on the bed, but it still hits him like a dull punch to the stomach. Unconsciously, he tightens his hold on Cas’ back, and Cas briefly reaches up a hand to squeeze his fingers.

The four of them gather around the bed, and Cas pulls away from Dean to lean one hand beside his own empty body.

“This is very strange,” he says, eyes on his face.

Dean huffs. “You’re tellin’ me.”

Cas reaches out and examines the symbol on the back of one hand. “I haven’t seen this before.” He frowns, then places his palm flat over the one on his chest and closes his eyes.

After a moment, his face scrunches further, and Dean can feel a low, rumbling sort of shift in the air. Then all at once the shifting stops, and Cas gasps out a frustrated breath and throws back his hand as though burned.

“Whoa, hey, I gotcha,” Dean grasps him by the upper arm, supporting him as he sways and tips backwards.

Cas takes a while to regain his breath. “I can’t go back,” he says dully.

Dean feels a piece of himself fall away.

“There’s. . . a taint, I suppose,” Cas continues. “Whatever she did, my body’s poisoned somehow.”

Dean can’t find any words to respond, so he looks up helplessly into Sam’s pitying eyes.

“Poisoned,” Sam repeats. “Does that mean we can cure you – or, I mean, your body?”

Cas shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe if we identify the symbol, or who the witch is, we can determine a way to remove the taint. But as it is right now, I’m locked out.”

Sam nods, setting his shoulders. “Okay then, we get to work. We’ll start looking through every symbology text and history book we’ve got.”

Cas looks up and tries to meet Dean’s eyes. He still hasn’t found his voice, so he just nods as Sam moves around to support Cas’ other side again.

Cas angles his head up as they start back towards the door. “You know, Sam, you really are quite tall.”

Sam laughs, and through his heartache Dean feels a small smile on his face. They’re almost at the door when he notices Jody isn’t following them. He turns around and finds she hasn’t moved at all from the bedside.

“Gimme a sec,” Dean says.

Sam nods and takes more of Cas’ weight, and the two of them leave for the library while Dean walks back over.

“What’s up?”

Jody’s staring down at the body, frowning thoughtfully, but she looks up briefly when Dean speaks.

“He looks so normal.” Her eyes drop back down to the bed, and Dean reluctantly follows her gaze.

“Well, Jimmy – he was normal.”

She nods. “I know. It’s just all those times I heard you boys – heard Claire – talk about your friend the angel. . . even with all I knew about Claire and what happened to her father, I guess I was still picturing the whole white robe and halo thing.”

“Yeah, maybe he’s not like the Christmas cards,” Dean says. “But you saw him out there on the road, what he did to the witch. There’s a lot of power under the hood.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” she says, then looks back up at Dean. “What is that even _like_ for you? Being with him, something so. . . I can’t even imagine.”

Dean gives her half of a bittersweet smile. “It’s not really like that. He’s just. . . Cas. He’s family.”

Jody takes a moment, studying his face. Eventually she nods, then looks down at the bed again. “You know, vampires, demons, zombies –” her voice wavers a little, “– it took me some time, but I could adjust to that. But angels. . . I _believed_ , you know, my whole life. Church every Sunday. I guess it’s just hard to reconcile a lifetime of religion and faith with. . . with this. He’s just a person. I don’t know what the hell to do with that.”

“Well, me,” Dean says, “I’m kinda the opposite.”

Jody looks back at him and cocks an eyebrow.

Dean shrugs. “I never believed in this stuff as a kid, I didn’t grow up with it. So I never really _got_ faith.” Dean’s eyes settle gently on the body. “Not until I met him.”

There’s silence then, and Dean’s gaze lingers on Cas’ face a long while before he pulls it back up. Jody is staring at him, her face awash in surprise and something else he can’t read.

Dean blushes and turns to the infirmary door. “C’mon, we should, uh, we should get to work.”

Research goes slowly, Dean, Sam, and Jody all digging into different texts and searching for hints of either the mysterious symbol or the Hebrew exorcism. Cas insists on helping, but he’s still weak and sits half-slumped in one of the library’s armchairs.

A few fruitless hours in, the sound of the bunker’s outer door carries down to their table. Sam and Dean are up in an instant, drawing their guns and taking up position on either side of the library steps, while Jody moves over to the corner beside Cas. Dean waits for the pressure in his ribs, but it doesn’t come.

“Hallooo?” echoes down from the doorway, and Dean and Sam exchange a look.

“Rowena?” Sam calls.

Rowena’s bright shock of red hair peeks around the doorframe. “Oh my,” she says. “Looks like you boys had quite the party in here.” She steps primly over the debris on the landing and leans up against an unbroken stretch of the railing. “Can I assume my invitation got lost in the mail?”

Dean lowers his gun. “What took you?” he snaps. “Sam called you ages ago.”

“I am a very busy woman, Dean Winchester. As it is, I had to rearrange several terribly important appointments for –” She stops, her eyes going wide. Her hands drift out in front of her, running through the air at the top of the steps. “There was _powerful_ magic here. Very powerful.” Keeping her hands raised, she walks slowly down the stairs, seeming to follow some invisible trail until she reaches a spot in the centre of the war room. An awed look on her face, she turns to look between them. “Who did you dunces piss off?”

“That’s what we wanna know,” Sam says. “She’s a witch; we were hoping you could tell us who she is.”

“Yeah, and if you could maybe fix up our door,” Dean says. “She just blasted through here like all our wards were nothing.”

Rowena steps closer to the library and finally catches sight of Jody. “Oh, hello there,” she smiles, cloyingly sweet. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“No,” Jody agrees, then her lip curls slightly, “but I’ve met your son.”

“Oh, I’m ever so sorry for that, dear,” Rowena simpers. “Believe me, the apple fell _very_ far from the tree.”

Jody rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I can tell.”

Lifting the skirt of her dress with one hand, Rowena climbs the stairs into the library. “Now now, you can’t believe everything these boys tell you, my dear.”

Cas speaks up from his chair in the alcove. “Rowena, if you could for once save your posturing and just help us –”

“Goodness, who’s this wee peanut?” she asks, running interested eyes over him. “You’ve got quite an attitude on you, Missy. I like it.”

Cas throws his eyes to the ceiling, exasperated.

“It’s Cas, Rowena,” Dean says, and Rowena cocks an interested eyebrow. “The witch that tried to redecorate in here, she exorcised him from his body and he can’t go back.”

Rowena steps up closer and peers down at Cas, then a broad smile splits her face. “Well, hello there, Feathers. I’ve got to say, I like the angsty teen look on you. Puts that famous scowl of yours into context.” She tilts her head. “This girl you’re wearing, she must be one of your vessel’s bloodline, hmm? She’s got your pretty blue peepers.”

“ _Rowena_ ,” Sam snaps, and she straightens out and looks around.

“You want my help? What’s in it for me?” she asks.

Dean glares at her. “We’ll owe you one.”

She narrows her eyes, considering.

“That’s not nothing,” Sam says.

Rowena holds Sam’s gaze a moment, then travels around to Cas again. “I suppose that’s true. Alright, fine. Tell me about this witch, then. And what did you do to make her _this_ angry?”

“Cas maybe, sort of, killed her son,” Sam says, and Rowena rolls her eyes.

Cas gives Sam a look. “It was justified.”

“And as for the witch, we don’t have a lot,” Jody cuts in. “We know she’s very, very old, and her exorcism spell was spoken in Hebrew.”

Something registers on Rowena’s face, but it disappears almost instantly. “Anything else?”

“The spell, it left marks on his body,” Dean says. “Some kind of symbol, but we’ve never seen it before.”

“Show me,” Rowena says.

Dean helps Cas out of the chair and they lead the way to the infirmary. One by one everyone piles into the room, taking up their places around the hospital bed; gathering like this is starting to feel too much like a wake for Dean’s liking.

Rowena moves in close and makes to pull one lifeless hand up in a clinical examination, but then her eyes go wide and she lets the arm fall with a soft thump back down onto the mattress.

“Not possible,” she says lowly, and steps backwards.

Dean’s heart starts to rabbit in his chest.

“What?” Jody asks. “What does it mean?”

“It means that you boys are well and truly screwed,” Rowena says, her voice trembling in shock. “The witch: where is she now?” she asks urgently.

“Weakened,” Cas says. “But I imagine it won’t take long for her to recover.”

Rowena doesn’t respond, merely closes her eyes. Concentration furrowing her brow, she begins to mumble in Latin, lightning-fast, and after a minute or two Dean feels a shudder in the building’s walls, followed by an echoing crash back out in the war room.

“Rowena?” Sam asks, but she ignores him and keeps up the relentless flow of spell words.

Finally, the shuddering stops and Rowena’s eyes open. “I’ve fortified your walls as best I can, but it won’t hold forever. Unless you find some way to stop her, she’ll eventually get through.”

“Who is she?” Sam asks.

“Avishag,” Rowena says, and Dean can see the shiver of fear jolt through her. “A witch of extraordinary power whom I thought long dead.”

“Do you know her?” Cas asks.

Rowena shakes her head fervently. “When I say ‘long dead,’ dear, I do mean _long_ – far before even my time. But her name is well known among witches. Avishag was the first ever High Priestess of the Grand Coven.”

“That would make her. . . old,” Sam says, eyes wide. “Like, pre-biblical old.”

“Yes,” Rowena agrees. “And it explains how easily she got past your fancy Men of Letters warding. The magic in these walls was stolen from the Grand Coven. It’s her own personal brand.”

“Okay, great, we’ve got us a biography,” Dean says impatiently. “What about the spell? Cas says his body’s been poisoned. How do we fix it?”

Rowena casts her eyes down to the symbol again. “This mark, it’s _her_ mark, and it’s left behind by a very particular spell, one of Avishag’s own invention. As far as I know, it hasn’t been used in _thousands_ of years. It was designed to kill angels.”

Cas looks up at Dean, then back to Rowena. “Then why am I alive?”

Rowena shakes her head and takes another few steps back from the hospital bed. “Don’t know, and frankly right now I don’t care. All I know is I’m getting as far away from you muttonheads as I possibly can.”

“Whoa whoa, hang on,” Sam says, and he steps forward to grab her by the upper arm. “You said you’d help.”

“I believe I _did_ ,” she shoots back, and yanks her arm free of Sam’s grip. “I told you who it is you’re dealing with, _and_ I went to the trouble of rebuilding your defences for you.”

“You’ve gotta give us more than that,” Jody says desperately.

Rowena purses her lips, then waves a hand once towards a table in the centre of the room. Four large, black hex bags ripple into existence, and she turns back to face them again. “Those should hide you from her, at least for a while. So there, I’ve done plenty. Now I’m going on an extended vacation to Fiji. Or perhaps Australia. Just so long as I’m well clear of this place.”

“We could use you on this, Rowena.” Dean is practically begging, but he can’t be bothered to care right now. “It’s twice now we’ve gone up against her, and both times she’s kicked our asses.”

Rowena takes another step towards the door. “Well, third time’s the charm. I’m sure you’ll think of something; you always do. Good luck, boys,” she says, then walks out of the infirmary. Her footsteps echo up the stairs, and a moment later Dean hears the sound of the (evidently repaired) iron door clanking open and shut again.

At the very least, they have a name now. Sam, Jody, and Cas return to the library, but Dean heads to the kitchen alone. Blood sugar’s running low for everyone, and more importantly he needs to clear his head.

It’s not too often Rowena looks scared like that, and it’s enough to turn Dean’s insides cold.

The fridge needs to be restocked, but there’s enough there for some basic sandwiches. He starts pulling out ingredients, hands moving on automatic as he grapples with the knowledge that he might lose Cas again.

It’s not like they’ve never been in tough spots before. They’ve been hurt. They’ve lost friends, they’ve lost _themselves_ – they’ve been up shit creek in any number of ways. Hell, between the three of them, Dean, Sam, and Cas have bit the dust enough times they ought to qualify for frequent die-er discounts or something. It’s just that Dean’s been living in this beautiful, shiny bubble of happiness for the last three months, and for a little while he’d managed to forget that their lives completely and utterly suck.

They had just wrapped up a run-of-the-mill demon possession. Cas had (for once) stuck around overnight, but then had bid his farewells over breakfast the next morning. He needed to go, had another Very Important Mission that was all about Duty and Responsibility and all that other bullshit that always pulled him away. Dean had let him walk out, but then for some reason he’d decided that enough was enough. So he chased Cas outside and pressed him up against the door of his truck and made damn sure Cas knew exactly what was waiting for him when he came home.

Then he’d pulled away from Cas’ shocked face and headed straight inside, not looking back no matter how much he’d wanted to.

Cas hadn’t followed him, and Dean spent the next week absolutely certain he’d ruined things between them forever. But then Cas had appeared, knocking on his bedroom door late at night and pushing him down into the mattress – promising between desperate and bruising kisses that he was going to stay.

And he had.

And it’s been the best three months of Dean’s fucked up life.

And now, predictably, it’s all gone to shit. The universe just doesn’t want him to be happy. It doesn’t want _Cas_ to be happy. He should’ve known; their entire lives have just been the collective forces of Heaven and Hell and everything in between taking turns to deliver them all pot shots.

The universe can go fuck itself. The universe is a mean, vindictive bastard, and Dean is sick to fucking death of it.

A heavy and resounding crash breaks the silence of the kitchen, and Dean looks over at the wall in surprise to discover the shattered remnants of a plate he last remembers holding in his hands.

One palm comes up to his face and he draws in a long, shuddering breath. Then he walks over, carefully picks up the broken bits of ceramic, and then finishes making the sandwiches.

Everyone’s back at the table, noses buried in books and files again. If anyone had overheard the sound of the plate breaking, they don’t comment.

They eat their sandwiches in relative silence. Occasionally someone will make a suggestion or ask a question, but the hours tick on and they’re getting nowhere.

Dean tries to focus, but his eyes keep going to Cas across the room. He seems to be drifting, his eyes slipping shut and head drooping every few minutes. Every now and then he’ll catch Dean looking and offer a tired smile, but Dean can’t find it in him to return it.

Finally, a long stretch of silence is interrupted by Sam and Jody both yelling “Got it!” at the exact same time.

They stare at each other a moment, then Jody nods excitedly. “You first.”

Sam holds out the book he’d been pouring through – to Dean’s surprise it’s a regular King James bible. “‘Kay, so, I _knew_ I’d heard the name Avishag before. She’s mentioned a couple times, under different names. But most famously as the Witch of Endor.”

“Endor,” Dean scoffs. “Seriously?”

Sam looks over at him, puzzled. “Yeah? It was a Canaanite city, in the time of King David.” Dean still has his eyebrows raised, so Sam frowns. “What’s the big deal?”

“Return of the Jedi,” Cas pipes up.

Dean cracks his first smile in hours.

Sam and Jody both turn to Cas, surprised.

“It’s underrated,” Cas says defensively.

“He likes the Ewoks,” Dean says, and Cas smiles at him.

Sam looks back and forth between the two of them a while longer, then shakes his head. “Right, whatever. _Anyway_ , the Witch of Endor was a medium, a necromancer. Now, most of the lore says she was benign, but there’s some fringey stuff that says she liked to summon demons and illusions to trick those who came to her for help – including King Saul, who committed suicide the day after he went to see her.”

“Okay, well that’s great, Sam,” Dean huffs. “But we already know she’s a Grade A _peach_.”

“Well, I’ve found the spell,” Jody says triumphantly, and pushes her own heavy text into the centre of the table.

Dean’s stomach is in knots, but he leans in to look at the circular symbol etched into the middle of a yellowed page.

“It’s kind of. . . technical, I guess, in places, but what it’s saying basically is that it uses the human soul inside a vessel _against_ the angel’s grace,” Jody says. “I don’t get how; that’s way above my pay grade. But it sounds like the spell _infects_ the human soul somehow, and that in turn poisons the grace.”

Sam looks at Cas, stunned. “That’s why it didn’t kill you. There was no human soul in your vessel.”

Cas nods. “But the poison is still there, it’s just rooted into my body instead of Jimmy’s soul.”

“Does the book have anything on reversing it?” Dean asks anxiously.

Jody grimaces. “This one doesn’t. From the sounds of it, this wasn’t something anyone ever worked on trying to counter.”

Dean looks at Cas now. “So what does this mean? We identified the spell, can you do anything with that?”

Cas meets his eyes sadly. “I don’t know.”

Dean’s neck is killing him. Wincing, he pulls up from where he’s flopped forward on the library table, his face buried in yet another useless Enochian text. One of the disadvantages of living underground is he has no idea what time it is at any given moment, but right now it feels late.

Someone’s thrown a blanket across his shoulders. Sam’s asleep, also slumped on the table, and Jody’s curled up in an armchair in the corner. There’s no sign of Cas anywhere.

Heart leaping to his throat, Dean looks up sharply to the door. It’s still closed, still unbroken; he doubts he could’ve slept through another attack from the witch. That must mean Cas (or possibly Claire) has just wandered off.

He checks his room – _their_ room, as he’s come to think of it – then the guest room they keep set up. Both are undisturbed, as is the kitchen. Eventually he thinks to check the infirmary.

Cas is sitting on the hospital bed adjacent to the body, Claire’s denim-clad legs dangling a few inches off the ground. He’s studying the face on the bed thoughtfully, one hand rubbing idly at his chin.

“Leave a note next time, would ya?” Dean gripes, coming all the way into the room.

Cas looks up briefly, then back to the bed. “I’m sorry.”

Dean shakes his head, then comes up to sit beside him. “You should probably be sleeping.”

“Probably.” Cas quirks half a smile.

He’s been avoiding it, but Dean’s eyes reluctantly settle on the body on the bed. The machines are making soft little beeps and hums, keeping the chest rising and falling, but Dean is sick to his stomach. Without Cas inside, the body looks sickly and weak, the face pale and hollowed. And despite the knowledge that Cas is right beside him, inches away, it still feels as though he’s dead.

Dean looks away abruptly, his eyes squeezing shut against the sight. He hates being in this room.

His eyes are still closed when he feels Cas’ hand circle around his on the stiff mattress between them. It’s smaller than it should be, but it’s warm. It’s something.

He opens his eyes to look at Cas, grateful he’d somehow managed to understand, without words, just what Dean needed.

 

 

Cas gives him a small, gentle smile, then returns his gaze to the other bed, tilting his head.

“What’re you thinking?”

Cas is silent, considering, eyes again locked on the face that used to be Jimmy’s. “Most angels. . . don’t get attached to things. Not things down here, anyway.”

Dean snorts. “I think we’re long past the point where you can be considered ‘most angels,’ Cas.”

“True,” he says. “I’ve had other vessels before. I never stayed in them for any extended period of time. My use of them was just that: _use_. Necessity, utility. I put them on like a coat when the mission required it, then took them off again when I was finished. I never thought of them again, nor what I looked like or _felt_ like when I wore them.”

“You were different then,” Dean says.

Cas nods. “More than even you can know.”

They sit in silence a long while.

“I want it back,” Cas finally says. “It’s not really logical, but it feels like mine. Just now, sitting here, doing this –” he indicates the hand on his chin “– it felt all wrong. I kept trying to feel the hair there.”

Dean lets out a small chuckle.

Cas turns his head. “I don’t want to find a different vessel, and I don’t want to just ‘let go.’ I want my body back. My _life_ back. The one I was starting to build with you.”

Dean’s heart seizes in his chest. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?”

Cas’ answering look is hesitant, cagey, and Dean feels a twist in his guts. “I know that face, even when it’s not your face. You’ve got something.” Cas looks away guiltily. “And I’m not gonna like it.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Cas starts. “The power in Avishag’s spell; without a human soul inside me, it was considerably weaker. Obviously – otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Dean tilts his head. “Okay. . .”

Cas continues, eyes still not meeting Dean’s. “Before you came in here, while you were asleep, I tried again, to go back.”

“You what?” Dean asks, angry. “Cas, what if something had happened?”

“It didn’t,” Cas says crossly. “But it was easier, I think – there was less resistance. It’s possible the spell is weakening with time.”

Dean frowns, still kind of pissed. “ _Possible_. But you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t. Not for sure,” he allows. “But if it is, then there might be something I can do, something I didn’t try.”

“What?”

Cas places his words slowly, deliberately. “My grace. I think it’s possible I could use it to remove the taint. It wouldn’t be like healing a normal injury, but I could use it to. . . counteract the poison – I suppose that’s the best way to put it. Cancel it out.”

“But it’s not that easy, is it?” Dean shakes his head. “This spell, Cas, it’s meant to destroy your grace – specifically your grace – isn’t it?”

Cas pauses. “Yes.”

Dean nods. “Okay. So what the hell makes you think that would be a good idea?”

“The part where it’s the _only_ idea, Dean,” Cas snaps. “We spent all afternoon looking for something else and found nothing. And I’m not willing to stay in Claire much longer. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“What’ll happen?” Dean asks, and stands up from the bed.

“What?” Cas frowns.

“If you do this, if you decide to use your grace like this. Worst case scenario.”

Cas sets his jaw. “I die.”

Dean nods in confirmation and turns away. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. _Not_ happening.”

“Best case scenario I don’t,” Cas offers.

“Yeah, and when the _hell_ do we _ever_ get the best case scenario, Cas?” Dean yells. “We don’t get the option of being lucky. It doesn’t work like that for us, never has.”

“Dean –”

“No,” Dean cuts him off, waving a hand. “No, we’re not doing this right now. You’re going to get some rest, you’re obviously sleep-deprived.”

“Hey!” Cas says angrily, and stands up too, a little unsteadily.

“And so am I,” Dean says. “I’m going to bed. And you _promise me_ you are not going to try _anything_ tonight.”

Cas glares at him.

Dean closes his eyes and exhales, long and hard. “Please, man.”

Cas makes a frustrated sound, and Dean opens his eyes again. Cas holds his gaze for a moment, then crosses his arms and looks away. “I don’t like arguing with you when you’re this much taller than me.”

Dean feels a smile threaten to pull at his lips, but he pushes it away. “Get some sleep,” he repeats quietly, then leaves Cas standing alone by the bedside.

He gets all the way back to his room before he realizes this is the first time in three months he’s gone to sleep in this bed without Cas beside him.

He contemplates going back to the kitchen to find more plates to throw.


	3. We Shall Meet Our Dead

All in all, it’s one of the least restful nights of Dean’s life. He tosses and turns for what feels like hours, but every time he looks to the clock glowing on his nightstand, he finds that only ten minutes have passed. When he does fall asleep, he dreams of an empty bunker, and of wandering the halls, calling out for Cas as his words echo into the silence.

He heaves himself out of bed a little after 6:00am, resigned to the fact that he’s not going to get any more sleep. Everyone’s cleared out of the library and the kitchen’s empty too, but he puts on a pot of coffee anyway.

The only sound for a long time is the coffeemaker gurgling away in the corner; the rest of the bunker is still and quiet, and way too much like Dean’s dream.

For something to do, and for a break from the oppressive silence, he scribbles a quick note on the fridge, then grabs his gun and one of Rowena’s hex bags. Baby’s windshield is still cracked, so he takes the keys for Cas’ crappy truck and heads out to Smith Center for supplies.

Even taking the long way there to try to clear his head, Dean arrives at the grocery store a solid half-hour before it opens. He could drive down the road to the Gas ‘n Sip and down a cup of nasty-ass coffee while he waits, but instead he sits in the truck, fingers drumming restlessly on the steering wheel.

He’s the first in the store when the clerk unlocks the door, and he moves through the empty aisles on autopilot, barely glancing at the items he’s chucking into the basket. Just as he’s rounding the corner near the bakery he feels a weird kind of thrumming in the air, a low hum that has the hair of his arms standing on end. Instincts kicking in, Dean drops the basket to the ground and reaches for the gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

It was probably really stupid to go out alone.

He brings the muzzle up in front of him, gaze sharp and wary, and pokes his head around the corner of the aisle. Halfway down is a figure surrounded in an eerie, yellow glow. She’s about a foot shorter than Dean, her hair is short and red and –

Dean’s voice nearly fails him. “ _Charlie_?”

Charlie grins and throws one vaguely blurred hand up in the Vulcan salute. “S’up, bitch?”

It’s possible Dean’s heart actually stops, while shock and a sense of loss that’s never fully healed threaten to bring tears to his eyes. “No, no, Charlie. You’re dead.”

“Yeah well, turns out when you piss off a necromancer, that doesn’t actually matter that much,” she says. “Which, by the way, _necromancer_? Awesome. Very Diablo II.”

Dean keeps his gun up, but despite his instincts and over thirty years of experience, he can’t help but walk towards her. “You can’t really be here,” he says numbly. “We. . . god, kiddo. We burned your bones.”

Charlie shakes her head. “I’m not a ghost. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m definitely not a _normal_ ghost.”

Dean runs his eyes over her, and thinks that’s at least partially true. She’s not pale and gaunt like a regular spirit. She’s not flickering – in fact, besides the diffusion of gold blurring her body, she looks like. . . like Charlie. Dean shakes his head and tries to speak, but his throat is dry and the words are all getting stuck.

She smiles again. “You’d think you of all people would be used to the whole ‘coming back from the dead’ thing.”

“You’re. . . you’re back?”

Her smile falters a bit. “Not really, sorry man. It’s this witch, Avishag. She’s got some serious firepower, Dean, and she sort of brought me back to deliver a message.”

Dean’s already rapidly thudding heart speeds up even more. “A message?”

Charlie nods. “Yeah. I guess for some reason she’s having a hard time finding you right now? I’m not really even here, wherever ‘here’ is for you. I think you’re the only one who can see me.”

“Uh, yeah.” Dean brings his free hand up to pat his jacket pocket. “Extra-crunchy hex bags from Rowena; glad to know they’re doin’ the trick.”

“Rowena?” Charlie makes a face. “Have you seriously not killed her yet?”

“Hey, right now I’d say that’s definitely a good thing,” Dean says. He looks at Charlie again, then swallows and slowly lowers his gun to hang at his side. “Charlie, I’m so sorry.”

Charlie turns up the corner of her mouth. “For what?”

“What d’you mean ‘for what?’ We. . . I got you _killed_ , kiddo. You shouldn’t ever have been in harm’s way, and especially not for my sake.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says gently. “Sometimes, we just roll ones.”

Tears are welling up in Dean’s eyes. “I miss you.”

“I know,” Charlie says with a smile, and then her face falls. “Listen, the message from Avishag – she says that you need to hand Castiel over to her by midnight tonight. If you do, she’ll let the rest of you go. If you don’t she’ll. . . she’ll make sure none of you is left alive.”

Dean pushes away his tears and nods, unsurprised. “Yeah, that’s basically what I was expecting.”

“Dean,” Charlie starts hesitantly. “Avishag – she’s scary. Like, _way_ scary. You gotta know whatever kind of mojo you got from Rowena isn’t going to hold out forever.”

“We’re working on it,” Dean says stubbornly, and Charlie rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, of course you are. And you’re gonna keep ‘working on it’ until the clock strikes midnight, and then she’s gonna turn you all into pumpkins.” She frowns and looks up slightly, thinking. “And by turn you into pumpkins, I mean kill you. Horribly. It. . . it might be time to tip over your king, bro.”

Dean frowns back at her. “What, do what she says? Give up Cas? You know we’d never do that. And besides,” he pauses, regret coursing through him, “you and me, um, we never got to talk about this, but. . . you know, right? You know what he is to me.”

“Yeah, I do,” Charlie says. “And if I weren’t, you know, _dead_ , you and me would be long overdue for an ice cream-filled sleepover where we would talk our queer little hearts out. But come on, man. Castiel did kinda kill her son.”

“Come on _yourself_ , her son was –” Dean stops, confusion turning to disquiet in his stomach. Slowly, he takes a step back. “You wouldn’t say that.”

Charlie cocks an eyebrow. “What? Look, Dean, I know he’s your boo now, but –”

“No,” Dean cuts her off, and brings his gun up again. “No, this isn’t you. You’re not really Charlie, are you?”

She stares back at him a moment before a smirk crosses her face. “Looks like your Wisdom’s at 30.”

Charlie – the thing that _looks_ like Charlie – straightens up, her expression growing flat and cool. “My warning stands.”

Blinding anger flashes through Dean. Charlie’s mouth is moving, but now it’s Avishag’s deep and resonant voice that leaves her lips.

“As if I didn’t have enough reasons to want you dead,” he spits. “You come to me lookin’ like _her_.”

“I can summon many things. Faces, voices.” Avishag tilts her head and spares a brief glance to the body she’s wearing. “I looked into your memories. The death of this woman. . . affects you. You felt a love for her. Familial – not unlike what I feel for my son.”

“Save the sob story, Elphaba. I heard your message; here’s my answer.” Dean takes one step forward and cocks his gun. “Kiss my ass.”

Avishag nods, slowly. “Very well. Know that when I come for you, you will have brought it down on yourself. The protections you’ve placed around your sanctuary are powerful, but I will breach them in time. And I will deal with each and every one of you once I do.”

Dean grits his teeth. “We’re gonna stop you.”

She nods a final time. “Midnight,” she says, then she’s gone.

Dean barely remembers paying for the groceries, and he honestly doesn’t know how he manages to make it back to the bunker with the shock and anger still racing through him.

Sam’s pacing in the kitchen, and he looks caught between relieved and deeply annoyed when he catches sight of Dean and his armful of supplies.

“Dude, what the hell? I sent you like fifty texts – the hell were you thinking heading out alone?”

Dean dumps the bags on the island and pulls out his phone. Sam’s right; there are over a dozen texts and two missed calls he apparently hadn’t noticed coming in as he drove. “Sorry, Sam. Head’s kinda not on straight, I guess.”

Sam looks a bit surprised, like he’d been expecting more of a fight. “Yeah, guess I can’t really blame you for that,” he says. “Still, don’t _do_ that. Something coulda happened.”

“It kinda did,” Dean says, starting to empty the bags into the fridge. “We got an ultimatum.”

“What?” Sam asks sharply. “Avishag? You okay?”

“Yeah – I mean, well, _no_ – but yeah. Remind me to thank Rowena,” he says grudgingly. “Her hex bags seem to hide is pretty well. She couldn’t find me, exactly, but she. . . she sent a message. Via Charlie.”

Sam’s face pales. “Charlie?”

“Well, not really Charlie, I don’t think.” Dean turns around and leans against the counter, running a tired hand across his face. “Some twisted, puppet version of her or something. Just to fuck with us for fun, I guess. God, I want to shoot her in the face.”

Sam is quiet, his eyes cast down to the table.

Dean presses on. “Anyway, we’re supposed to hand over Cas by midnight, or she busts in here again and kills us all. You know, the usual.”

Sam squeezes his temples with one hand. “Yeah. The usual.”

Dean laughs, without humour, then nods to the kitchen door. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Jody’s up, she was blowin’ off some steam in the gun range,” Sam says. “And I put Cas in bed like, two hours ago. He – they, him and Claire I mean – I don’t think they’re doing so hot.”

Dean sighs. “Yeah. He tell you about his genius plan yet?”

“You mean to go kamikaze with his grace? Yeah. Classic Cas. Only reason I didn’t go postal on him was ‘cause I figured you already had.”

“Yeah, and then some,” Dean scoffs. “We gotta find something else today, Sammy. Otherwise he’s gonna try it whether we agree or not.” His hand comes back up to his face.

“How you holding up, man?”

Dean pulls his hand down and gives Sam a look. “I’m _great_ , Sam. How are you?”

Sam looks contrite. “Yeah, alright, stupid question.”

A thousand smartass remarks run through Dean’s head, but in the end he just sighs and closes his eyes. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just so damn tired.”

Sam disappears off into the bowels of the bunker not long after breakfast, Jody sits by Cas and Claire’s bedside with _The Enochian Myth_ , and when another couple hours of staring at the books in the library yield nothing, Dean heads back out to the garage. It’s hardly the most important thing he could be doing, but fixing Baby always works to focus him. For a few hours he can be useful; he can do something _right_.

He replaces the windshield, then keeps going, giving her a tune-up she doesn’t really need. Try as he might to clear his head, Avishag still sits front and centre, her voice ringing in his ears. He does his best to force her away.

It’s another three minutes before it hits him.

Dean drops his tools and bolts back up to the library, calling out for Sam. Jody and Cas are back at a table, and they look up sharply when he bursts in from the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Jody asks, rising from her chair as Cas looks at him searchingly.

Dean holds his eyes for a few seconds, then turns back to Jody. “Where’s Sam?”

“Dean,” Sam says, coming out into the room from another door. He’s got a flat wooden box in his hands.

“Sammy, I got it. We need Rowena back here, or Crowley. There’s this thing, this –”

Sam drops the box on the library table and opens it. Inside is a wrought-iron collar studded with spikes. “You mean this thing?”

Dean smiles, genuinely, for the first time all day.

Jody leans down over the table. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a witchcatcher,” Cas says. “And it’s a really stupid idea.”

Dean stares at him. “Are you kiddin’ me right now?”

“Dean, what makes you think that this will work on her? We’ve already seen she’s more powerful than any other witch we’ve come across.”

“So what, we don’t try?”

“Anybody wanna explain to me what a witchcatcher is?” Jody cuts in.

Sam has been watching Dean and Cas like a tennis match, but he turns to Jody. “Basic enough concept: you put this thing around a witch’s neck, they’re forced to follow your commands.”

Jody blinks. “And you just happen to have one of these lying around?”

“Well no, I didn’t think so – they’re really rare. But I found a reference in one of the Men of Letters files this morning and went digging.” He looks back at Dean. “I didn’t want to say anything until I’d found it.”

Dean nods gratefully.

“Okay, there we go then, problem solved!” Jody says.

“No, _not_ problem solved,” Cas says angrily, standing up on shaky legs. “This isn’t going to work. Even if you managed to distract her long enough to get it around her neck, everything we’ve seen so far says she’d be able to overpower the magic. And then she turns around and kills you. And I am _not_ going to let that happen.”

“Well, we’re sure as hell not going with _your_ dumbass plan,” Dean snaps. “Going in on a suicide run with your grace – how’s that any damn smarter?”

Cas’ glare turns icy. “I know I look like a child to you right now, Dean. But could you manage not to patronize me for once?”

“Guys, cool it,” Sam says, before Dean gets a chance to fire back. “Dean’s right, Cas. Besides, even if your plan works, and you get back in your body, what then? We’ve still got a witch on our asses, hell-bent on killing you.”

“Once I’m back, and I’ve regained my strength, I’ll be able to stop her. I hurt her before.”

Dean shakes his head. “We won’t have time for you to ‘regain your strength,’ Cas. We’ve got a deadline.”

Cas furrows his brow in question.

“Dean went out this morning, and Avishag sent a message,” Sam says, and Dean looks away. “She’s coming in at midnight.”

Cas looks at Sam, jaw flexing, then he turns to glare at Dean. “You went out? Alone?”

“Who’s patronizing now?” Dean snipes.

“Boys,” Jody starts.

Cas turns to look at her. “Jody, you should understand, that my plan – using my grace to heal my body? It _will_ save Claire. I’ll leave her; she’ll be free of me, and no worse the wear. _That_ is the most important thing here.”

Jody pauses, considering him.

“Cas, we put the witchcatcher on Avishag, she undoes what she did, and that saves Claire too.” Sam crosses his arms.

Cas shakes his head. “It’s too great a risk.”

“Stubborn bastard,” Dean growls.

Cas glares at him a long while, then pulls his chair back out and sits down. He squares his shoulders and closes his eyes.

“Castiel?” Jody asks.

“I’m not the only one with a say in this,” Cas says, then his eyes flare bright.

Claire sinks against the back of the chair, blinking her eyes slowly. “Wish you dumbasses would stop fighting. It’s giving me a headache.”

Jody squats down beside the chair. “Hey, honey. Yeah, they’re kinda _loud_ , aren’t they?” She flicks annoyed eyes to Dean.

“I’m sorry, Claire,” Dean says. “Cas is right about one thing though: where’re you landing on this?”

“For starters, pretty freakin’ tired of being in the middle of _this_ ,” she gestures between herself and Dean.

Jody nods. “You’ve done more than you needed to already, Claire. It’s okay to want out.”

Claire sighs, then shakes her head. “Alright, I’m not gonna pretend Castiel and I don’t have. . . issues. But I’m not gonna bail on him.” She finds Dean’s eyes. “Look, he’s trying to hide it from me – protect me, I guess – but his plan? It’s gonna kill him.” 

An invisible fist twists itself in Dean’s guts, and he swallows around his dry throat. “You know that for sure?”

Claire rolls her eyes. “Well, _he_ thinks it’ll work. But chances are, he burns himself out trying. And he’s still weak from the fight in the road. He can’t do that again either.” She looks over at Jody, shoulders set. “We go with the witchcatcher plan. I know there’s risk. But I’m not willing to lose Castiel just to save my own skin.”

Gratitude like he can’t believe wells up in Dean. He swallows again, then nods. “Okay. We got six hours still before midnight, but I’d rather not wait around ‘til the clock runs out.”

“There’s that warehouse, down off the highway. We’ll set up there,” Sam says, gathering the box back up.

“Let’s do this,” Claire nods, and makes to stand.

“Whoa, no, hold on,” Dean says. “Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Um, I’m coming too,” Claire says. “Duh.”

“Oh hell no. You are staying in here, you are barricading yourself in the dungeon surrounded by every piece of warding we can think of, and you’re gonna wear Rowena’s hex bag like a damn fashion accessory.”

“What the hell?” Claire says angrily, heaving herself up but leaning heavily on the table. “This is my life, you think I’m gonna sit this one out?”

Jody drops a hand on her shoulder. “You bet your ass you are. You can barely stand on your own.”

“And you said yourself, Cas is still weak from last time,” Sam says. “You both need to stay put. We’ll deal with this.”

“That’s _bullshit_ ,” Claire snaps. “You need me.”

“Claire –” Dean starts.

“No, listen. How’d the witch find you guys?”

Dean glances at Sam, confused. “What d’you mean?”

“Before, when she first attacked you in here. How’d she track you? And out there on the highway?”

Dean grits his teeth in realization.

“Even when I had control, she knew he was in here,” Claire says. “She was tracking Castiel. She’s got a bead on him somehow – his grace or whatever, who knows. You wanna set a trap for her, fine. But you need the bait.”

“No,” Jody says. “No, it’s not gonna happen, Claire.”

Claire turns around to face her fully. “I’m not a kid anymore, Jody, and you can’t keep trying to protect me like this. I can’t keep sitting in the car while you run in without me.”

Jody shakes her head. “You’re gonna have to this time.”

“This is the only way it’s going down, kid,” Dean says. “We’re not risking you. And Cas knows that too. He might not like the plan, but you know damn well he doesn’t want you in the middle when things go Thunderdome.”

Claire keeps glaring at all of them, but eventually she flops back down in the chair. “I _hate_ this.”

“Yeah,” Jody says, looking between Dean and Sam gratefully. “We all do, honey.”

It takes an hour to get Claire (and Cas) safely locked down in the dungeon, now layered with spray-painted wards of every kind. Dean’s pretty confident in the plan, but they don’t know how long they’ll be, so he and Sam carry in a bed, a laptop, and a mountain of snacks to tide Claire over. She sits down on the edge of the mattress grumpily as they prepare to leave.

Jody drops a kiss on Claire’s head and then leaves the room with Sam. Dean reaches over to pat her shoulder gently, but a hand grabs his fingers and Cas looks out again from behind Claire’s eyes.

“This is stupid,” he says quietly. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Dean shrugs. “Nah. That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Don’t do that,” Cas says, voice hard. “This isn’t funny.”

“I ain’t laughin,’ Cas. Just sit tight, we’ll be back. Promise.”

“And don’t do _this_ ,” he says, desperation starting to come through. “This plan, it’s foolhardy, and reckless. Don’t put me before Claire, Dean. Don’t you _dare_.”

Dean sucks in a breath through his nose. “I’m coming back, Cas, and I’m bringing home a witch. This is gonna work.”

“You can’t know that.”

A small smile pulls at Dean’s lips. “Something somebody taught me once,” he says, and he pulls Cas’ hand to his mouth. “Try a little faith, Cas.”

Cas stares at him, then Dean releases his hand gently and leaves the room. He doesn’t look back.

A few minutes later, Dean, Sam, and Jody pull out of the garage and drive Baby the five miles to the warehouse. They’d first scouted it weeks after moving into the bunker – it’s long abandoned and perfect for a showdown.

They set up what little fortification they can and again load up with the poison bullets, but each of them knows they’re betting it all on the witchcatcher. If it fails, Dean’s pretty sure there won’t be anything they can do about it.

“Look,” Sam says, checking his revolver, “obviously we couldn’t have brought Claire and Cas along, but she had a point about the tracking. What if Avishag doesn’t show?”

“I’d say we’ve pissed her off enough that she’s still gonna want to take us out,” Dean says. “Besides, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Sam, but we’re kinda fresh out of other ideas.”

Sam concedes with an incline of his head. “Yeah, fair enough. We ready?”

Jody shrugs. “As we’ll ever be, I guess.” 

“Alright then,” Sam says. “See ya on the other side, guys.” He claps Dean on the shoulder and ducks into the partitioned office in the corner to wait.

Dean raises his eyebrows at Jody, and she nods back, mouth forming a grim line. Then they both raise their hex bags, and Dean pulls out his lighter.

They drop them, flaming, to the ground a few seconds later, and then both bring their guns up, wary but ready.

And nothing happens.

Dean keeps his eyes sharp, casting about the dimly-lit warehouse and waiting for the first flash of movement. He can feel Jody beside him doing the same, her weight shifting back and forth as she turns, and all the while his anxiety keeps ratcheting higher.

If they screwed this up, if she doesn’t take the bait, they’ve left Claire and Cas alone and all but defenseless. Their wards and precautions seem absolutely pointless in retrospect. They’ve still got hours left to Avishag’s deadline, but if she was jerking them around, just _waiting_ for them to clear out, there’s nothing –

“Mommy?”

Dean’s heart drops to his knees and he spins around, and at the same moment there’s a noise to his left. It’s a sound Dean knows far too well – one of pure shock and grief, and he hates more than anything it came from Jody.

Standing under a slowly flickering light not ten feet away is a small boy Dean’s only seen in photographs. He’s diffused in the same strange, golden glow that Charlie had been, and his eyes are wide and watery.

“Owen –” chokes out of Jody’s mouth, and Dean looks over to find her eyes are full of tears too.

“It’s not him, Jody,” Dean says urgently, reaching for her arm. “Jody – look at me. It’s the witch, she’s messing with you.”

But Jody can’t seem to look away.

“I miss you, Mommy,” the spirit says, and it takes a small step forward. “I wanna come home.”

Jody draws in a shaky, rattling breath, and a tear drops down her cheek.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Dean hollers out to the ceiling, rage firing through him. “Come in here yourself you _coward_.”

“The lady says I can come home, Mommy. You just have to give her what she wants.”

“Damnit,” Dean growls. His duffel bag is at his feet, and he grabs the iron crowbar and walks forward. Jody lets out a sound of protest, but Dean ignores her and swings with it, wide.

The crowbar goes right through, Owen’s body parting and reforming around it. The spirit doesn’t react, doesn’t look at Dean at all, just keeps staring directly at Jody.

“Please, Mommy,” it says quietly.

Dean looks back at her, desperate, but Jody’s eyes still don’t leave the face of her son.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Jody, don’t!”

Jody nods. “Okay. I’ll do it. We’ll do it.”

The spirit smiles, then slowly fades away, the golden light disappearing. Jody gasps another trembling breath, then Dean can feel the deep cold in his heart and he turns back around.

Avishag stands behind him, her cloak too bright in the low light of the warehouse.

“Bring him back,” Jody croaks. “Please.”

Avishag nods, a small smile on her face. “I will. Once you have handed the angel over to me.”

Dean backs up to stand beside Jody, his hand coming across her body protectively. “No way in hell.” He starts to inch to the right, half-pushing Jody along with him.

“You understand, don’t you,” Avishag says, her eyes running over Jody’s face as her feet follow their movements. “You and I – we are the same. You are a mother who has lost her son. Think what you would do to hold him again.” She paces with the two of them, circling. “You understand my pain, and my anger.”

Jody nods, jerkily, and Dean takes another few steps. Just a little further.

“Bring me the angel, and I will return your son to you,” Avishag says.

Dean stops moving and holds his breath.

Sam is quick and silent as he comes up behind her; before Avishag can react at all the iron collar clamps around her neck and she drops to her knees.

Dean releases the breath, relief coursing through him, and he meets Sam’s eyes. Sam’s chest is heaving too, but he smiles briefly and comes around in front to stand beside them.

Dean reaches out and grips Jody’s shoulder, squeezing tight. Tear tracks still run down her face, but her jaw is set and her eyes have gone hard as she stares at the witch.

Avishag looks up at them, her expression finally betraying a trace of anger. “How can you turn your back on what I offer?” she hisses to Jody. “You lost your _child_.”

Jody takes a step towards her. “And I’m not going to lose another one,” she snarls, then pulls back her fist and punches Avishag hard across the face. “That’s for using my son.”

Avishag spits a mouthful of blood on the ground, and Sam reaches down to grasp Jody’s upper arms, pulling her back up to stand. “You okay?”

Jody visibly swallows, her eyes meeting Sam’s, then Dean’s. She nods once.

“Good,” Dean says, voice clipped, and he looks back at Avishag. “Now, here’s the deal. This little necklace you’re rockin’ right now? Means you’re going to do exactly what we tell you. So, you’re going to fix what you did. The spell, the poison you put into Cas’ body – you’re going to remove it.”

Avishag closes her eyes and breathes in sharply through her nose. “No,” she says through gritted teeth.

Dean falters. “The hell do you mean ‘no?’”

She glares up at him, defiant even through her laboured breathing. “This. . . device, this magic. It cannot compel me. I am power beyond your understanding, boy.” She starts to clumsily stand, but then collapses back down almost immediately.

“Don’t seem that powerful,” Dean sneers, and Avishag turns cold eyes back up to him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jody says. “You don’t have to obey by magic, fine. Let’s do this the old-fashioned way.” She brings her gun up, inches from Avishag’s face, and cocks it.

Dean smirks, and he and Sam bring their guns up as well.

“You’re not looking so hot there, Avishag,” Sam says. “Seems like this collar’s got some use after all. So, new plan: you undo what you did to our friend, or we kill you.”

Avishag narrows her eyes. “You tried with those bullets before. They did not work then, and they won’t now.”

“Wanna put that to the test?” Dean asks.

“Enough,” Avishag snaps. Her eyes close again, then words start to roll rapidly off her tongue, low and melodic. There’s a thrumming in the air and the tight pressure returns to Dean’s ribs. Before he can move his finger on the trigger of the gun, he’s forced back from Avishag, blasted off his feet and skidding across the warehouse floor until his back is pressed flat to an old oil drum. Sam crashes down shortly after, and then Jody follows on his other side, grunting in pain.

Across the room, Avishag again struggles to her feet, staggering a little and leaning against a metal support beam. Panic starts flooding Dean’s brain. He’s pinned, but she’s obviously still weakened; if he concentrates, if they can distract her long enough and keep her off-balance, he could fight free and grab his gun. He catches Sam’s eye, looking between him and his Colt, which landed closest to Sam’s immobilized hand. Sam nods in understanding, and he starts shifting minutely, clearly straining under the effort of moving his fingers. 

Avishag starts taking slow, lurching steps toward them, and she extends her hand out in front of her, palm facing the three of them. Her eyes narrow threateningly.

Dean bites his tongue and concentrates, willing his hands to budge, just a little. Then movement on the far side of the room catches his eye, and his heart fails.

Cas is walking towards them, slow and deliberate, his eyes fixed on Avishag. His angel blade is in one hand and the burned remains of the final hex bag is in the other. Avishag seems to sense him, and she turns around slowly, still unsteady on her feet.

“Get the hell out, Cas!” Sam shouts.

Cas flicks his eyes to Sam briefly, then returns his focus to Avishag. “Let them go.”

Dean stares.

“Damnit,” Sam hisses to Dean. “What the hell’s he thinking?”

But Dean squints at Cas, walking slowly nearer. There’s something in his eye, something in the tilt of his head and the just slightly too-stiff gait. . .

 _Fuck_.

It’s a good impression, credit where credit’s due.

But if they make it out of this, Dean is going to _kill her_.

Claire raises the angel blade higher, pointing it at Avishag’s heart. “I said, let them go.”

Avishag straightens out as best she can. “I would have, once. But you hid behind these humans, coward that you are. Now their fate is tied to yours.”

Jody and Sam are both still struggling hard against Avishag’s hold. Sam looks at Dean desperately, but Dean holds his tongue. Avishag can apparently sense Cas inside of Claire, but for whatever reason it doesn’t seem like she can tell who’s calling the shots, and Dean can’t risk tipping Sam off. If Avishag calls Claire’s bluff, it’s all over.

“You know I have the power to kill you,” Claire says, “and I will – here and now – unless you release my friends and remove the taint on my vessel.”

It’s a decent enough imitation of Cas’ voice, but when Dean looks closely he can see the strain in Claire’s muscles, the effort it’s taking her to keep steady and upright. They don’t have long. With little other choice, he gets Sam’s attention again, looking back and forth between him and Claire, trying to communicate as best he can without words. Sam frowns and shakes his head, uncomprehending.

Avishag is still completely focused on Claire, slightly wary as she eyes the silver blade. “You are weak, angel. I see how you struggle, standing before me, trapped in the body of this girl.” She pauses there, narrowing her eyes. Her head tilts slightly and she takes a step forward.

Claire raises her left hand, palm out, but takes a step backwards. She stumbles, and for half a second her composed expression flickers.

Beside him, Jody gives a sharp intake of breath, and Dean can tell she’s figured Claire out too.

“Ah,” Avishag says softly, and Dean’s stomach drops.

Claire’s eyes go wide; she lets her left hand fall and brings the angel blade back up, preparing to charge, but before Dean can call out a warning she’s off her feet, thrown back to slam into the wall behind her with a sickening whack. She collapses in a heap on the floor, blood dripping from a cut at her temple.

“ _Claire_!” Jody yells, panic threaded through her voice.

Claire is barely conscious, her eyes sluggish and hazy. She tries to heave herself up, but Avishag raises her hand again and Claire is forcibly pinned to the wall.

“Brave girl,” Avishag says, her breath laboured again from exertion. “But foolish.” She starts moving forward.

Claire is fighting hard against Avishag’s hold, grappling with consciousness as she tries to reach for the blade knocked from her hand. But then Avishag tightens her hand into a fist, and Claire is pushed back even further. Her head knocks into the wall, her eyes fall closed, and then she stops moving altogether.

“Hey!” Dean calls out desperately as Avishag keeps walking. “This is a hell of a lot of effort for that sad-sack little man-witch you called a son.”

Sam swears under his breath, but Dean’s attempt at distraction seems to work. Avishag’s posture goes rigid and she halts her advance. 

“I’m serious,” Dean continues wildly, and Avishag slowly turns to face him. “I don’t know what the hell you were trying to teach that little Hogwarts reject, but it looked to us like Merlin Jr. couldn’t so much as mystically wipe his own ass.”

The squeezing pressure returns to Dean’s lungs, and Avishag starts towards him – still slow, still unsteady, but her eyes have turned black and furious.

“Tell me something,” Sam says quickly. “You’re a necromancer, right? That’s your _thing_? You like to bring back these spirits, jerk us around? Why don’t you just bring back your son?”

Avishag pauses, her eyes falling on Sam. She stares at him, hard, for a long moment, then Dean can feel the pressure in his ribs easing slightly as she straightens out her back again and waves one arm in a wide arc.

A thin, gold stream of vapour starts spilling out from her hand. It swirls around and grows, blossoming tall, until the shape of Simon Vesper is fully visible beside her. He doesn’t seem to see any of them, his eyes staring out into the middle distance.

“They are. . . shades, only,” Avishag says. Dean doesn’t think he’s ever heard her speak so softly. “Drifting voices. Whispers that comfort us out of the dark.”

She waves her hand again, and suddenly Simon’s distant expression changes. His eyes find Avishag’s, and they turn wide and beseeching. “I wanted to be better, mother,” he says. “I know I’m not what you wanted. I was just trying to be what you wanted.”

“And they cannot stay,” Avishag continues. She doesn’t seem to be talking to them anymore, eyes fixed on her son and voice still so soft. “They ache to be here. They do not belong.”

“I can try again, mother. I’ll stay with you – you can teach me, show me how to be better, be what you _wanted_ ,” he pleads.

For the first time, Avishag’s cool veneer slips, and Dean glimpses the pain in her dark eyes. “I didn’t want an apprentice, dear one. I wanted a child.”

Then she waves her hand once, quickly – almost dismissively – and Simon fades away to nothingness.

There’s a breathless silence in his wake.

“Guess he didn’t really get that message, huh?” Dean asks, still trying to fight her hold. “Impossible parental expectations – I’ve been there, sister. Ain’t so fun.”

This seems to snap Avishag back to the present, and she focuses her eyes on Dean.

Sam breaks in again, drawing her attention back to him. “We’ve been doing some digging on you, you know. And you’ve kept out of the way, haven’t you? For centuries. You’ve been trying to lead a quiet life. You didn’t want any of this, not anymore.”

“Perhaps not,” she says. “But you are mistaken if you think I will let the murder of my child go unavenged.”

“Your _child_ was killing innocent people,” Jody says. “All to try and impress _you_.”

“What crime could a child commit, that would pervert a mother’s love?” Avishag asks. “Would you not forgive your son of anything? Even murder?”

Jody’s eyes go wide, her mouth closing tight.

Avishag’s gaze bores into her. “You would. . . you _have_.”

“Get out of my head,” Jody spits. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

Avishag straightens up again, satisfaction on her face. “It hardly matters – enough of this.” For the second time her eyes close, and she starts chanting lowly. After a few seconds, smoke starts to rise from around her neck, and they watch in horror as the witchcatcher is melted away.

Barely sparing them another glance, she turns around and starts back across the room, heading for Claire, still unconscious against the wall.

This is it, Dean thinks, he moves now or Cas and Claire both die. Letting his abject terror drive him forward, Dean wrenches himself away from the oil drum and grabs for his Colt. Avishag doesn’t notice, all her concentration directed at Claire’s limp form, so he pulls the muzzle up and fires, hitting her square in the back.

Evidently too weak and distracted now for her bullet-melting trick, Avishag staggers a little, and thick, black blood starts to ooze out of the bullet hole, staining her white cloak. She spins back around but doesn’t fall, merely extends her hand again.

There isn’t enough time to get another shot off before Dean is slammed back against the drum, the gun still in his hand but forced uselessly down.

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam shouts, but then Avishag brings her other hand up and he and Jody are pushed back as well.

“I feel I have entertained this long enough,” Avishag snarls.

Then pain splits Dean’s chest, sharp and vicious. He screams.

Time slows down in his agony; it’s like she’s breaking each and every rib, one by one. Then everything whites out.

Except then the pain stops, abruptly, and he realizes it’s not his own vision that’s gone white, it’s the entire room. He slams his eyes shut against it and hears Avishag cry out.

He doesn’t wait for the light to fully fade before he pries them open again, too caught up in desperate hope to be cautious. Squinting hard, he sees Cas – _really_ Cas this time – rising smoothly to his feet, eyes glowing electric blue. The white light is still radiating from his body, and Dean watches as the cut on Claire’s forehead heals.

The angel blade back in his hand, Cas strides across the room, where Avishag has been thrown to the ground. Once he reaches her he bends down and grabs her hair in one hand and brings the blade point up to her neck.

“Can you do it?” he asks. “Can you remove the poison?” 

Avishag grins, black blood in her teeth. She spits in his face.

Resigned, Cas nods. And he stabs her through her throat.

It’s horrible; more blood spews from her mouth and the air is filled with a choked gurgling. It seems to take forever, but finally Dean feels the power holding him weaken, then lift away entirely as she wretches a final time and then stills.

Dean’s on his feet before his brain has caught up, stumbling over and catching Cas just as he drops. Dean collapses under him, arms wrapping around Claire’s thin waist.

“Hey hey hey hey, easy, easy,” he says. Jody and Sam come up on either side of him, kneeling down to help.

Cas is nearly out of it, eyes drifting and unfocused, but he twists up the corners of his mouth in satisfaction.

“Damnit, Cas, you shouldn’t have done that,” Dean says, pained.

“She was going to kill you,” Cas mumbles.

Dean shakes his head. “And what d’you think’s gonna happen to _you_ now, dumbass?” he squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m not worth dying for, Cas.”

Cas chuckles. “When has that ever stopped me?”

Then he promptly passes out.


	4. We Have Need of Faith

With Avishag dead, there’s nothing for the three of them to do but wait. Dean sits on a chair pulled up to the bed in the guest room, Jody’s on the other side, and Sam is sprawled on the little couch against the far wall. Nobody talks. Nobody sleeps.

It’s more than ten hours before Cas blinks his eyes back open.

“So, your plan went well,” he says tiredly, looking between the three of them. “We ready to try mine yet?”

Jody and Sam look up at the sound of his voice, and Dean straightens in his chair before his eyes narrow to a glare.

Cas cocks an eyebrow. “I’m guessing since you’re all in here, nobody’s planning on coming up with a better idea.”

Dean grits his teeth. “Yeah, just like you wanted, huh?”

Cas shakes his head. “I wish the witchcatcher had worked. But this is the end of the line, Dean. I’m done using Claire to fight my battles.” He shuffles clumsily upright, and despite his frustration Dean reaches over to help him, hand supporting his back. 

“Let’s just wait a little longer, Cas. I’m bettin’ you need to be at full power to try this.”

“Well yes, that would’ve been better,” Cas says pointedly. “But no, I’m doing this now. I’m as strong as I’m going to be in this state.” 

“Cas –”

“Now, Dean,” he says.

He walks to the infirmary on his own, leaning on walls or chairs every so often but only stumbling a little. Dean anxiously trails a half step behind, ready to take his weight, but Cas is determined. Stubborn.

They stand gathered around the hospital bed for what Dean desperately hopes is the final time. Cas looks at the face on the bed, half-hidden by the life support tubes. “I don’t know exactly how this is going to work,” he says, and looks back up. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how long it’ll take.”

Dean clenches his jaw.

Cas glances at him briefly, then peers around the room. “Sam, can you bring me that chair?”

Sam moves across the infirmary and drags it over for him. Dean tries to help him down, but Cas shakes his head.

“For Claire,” he says, looking now at Jody.

“Will she be okay?” Jody asks.

“Yes,” Cas says firmly. “She may still be weak for a short time, but I’ve repaired any damage to her body.”

Jody looks at him a moment, then nods gratefully. “Thank you, Castiel. For looking out for her.”

A somewhat disbelieving look crosses Cas’ face. “You don’t owe me thanks, Jody. You don’t owe me anything. And neither does Claire. If I –” he stops, eyes casting down briefly. “If this doesn’t work, please make sure she knows that.”

This is so completely insane. Dean wants to throw something. He balls his hands into fists instead and sits down on the empty bed behind him, glaring at the wall.

Sam looks at him for a few seconds, then steps in close and wraps his arms around Cas. Cas hugs him back, then Sam moves away and offers him a small smile.

“Cas. . .” he starts helplessly, but he doesn’t seem to be able to finish, his smile falling into a grimace.

Cas looks up at him fondly. “I’ll see you soon,” he says.

“Yeah, you better,” Sam says.

Dean catches his eye, and Sam nods. “We’ll uh, we’ll give you guys a minute.” He pulls at Jody’s shoulder, and she nods at both Cas and Dean before following him out of the room.

For a moment, the only sounds are the small beeps and mechanical pumping of the life support system, then Cas turns around. At first he looks like he’s about to say something, but then he stops and simply stares, his eyes running over Dean’s face. Like he’s trying to memorize it.

Dean tries to look back, but the dull ache in his chest eventually forces his eyes shut.

“There isn’t another way,” Cas says softly.

Dean opens his eyes. “This isn’t fair.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You and me – Cas, we only just got this figured out.”

“I know.”

Dean laughs bitterly. “Shoulda known we were never gonna catch a break.”

“I wish you’d stop talking like I’m already dead,” Cas says.

Dean gives him a look. “Claire told us the odds, Cas. Ain’t exactly in our favour.”

At that, Cas gives a real, broad smile. “They never are. But I’m going to fight.” He pauses again, forcing Dean to meet his eyes. “I’ve lived a very long time, Dean.”

“Cas –”

“And in all that time,” Cas interrupts, “I have _never_ loved anything like I love you.”

Dean’s throat his dry, but he feels an annoying pricking at his eyes. “Don’t – don’t do the goodbyes thing, man.”

“I didn’t say ‘goodbye,’” Cas says. “I said ‘I love you.’”

Dean swallows roughly. “Right. Well, me too.”

Cas smiles, small and soft. He steps up close, but then Dean stops him with a hand to his shoulder.

Christ. If this is it, he’s gonna have some fucking guts. “I mean, I love you too.”

Pain and joy in equal measure flood Cas’ eyes, then he leans in, pressing his lips to Dean’s forehead. Dean’s eyes slide shut and he feels the tears finally fall.

A deep breath shudders out of his chest as Cas pulls away. Cas smiles gently one more time, then moves a few paces back and turns around to the body – his body – and places a hand on the chest.

Dean stands and follows. “You better wake up.”

Cas nods but doesn’t look at him. “Close your eyes,” he says quietly.

The room is burning white before Dean can say anything else.

He throws a hand up to shield his eyes, but he peeks around it as Claire’s body arches, her head falling back and her eyes glowing blue. She’s suspended momentarily, then the light seems to leave her and she collapses, landing in a slump in the chair. Dean snakes out a hand to support her head, but keeps the other up to block out the light.

It takes almost a full minute, then the light fades, shrinking back into the body on the bed. Into _Cas_. But he doesn’t stir.

There’s footsteps at the infirmary door and Sam and Jody come rushing back in.

Jody drops to a squat beside the chair. “Claire?”

Claire’s eyes scrunch up, her brow furrowing. “Yeah. Just me.”

“Okay, so far so good,” Sam says, trying to smile at Dean.

Dean’s too busy feeling like he’s going to puke.

“Take it easy. How do you feel?” Jody asks.

“Kinda. . . floaty.” Claire peels her eyes open, and then frowns. “And like, _so_ hungry.”

Jody grins widely. “I’ll make you something.”

Claire shakes her head and squints at Cas. “What about Castiel?”

Four pairs of eyes fall on the bed. Everyone’s holding their breath.

They wait. And wait.

The minutes tick on; Dean’s pretty sure the only thing that’s moving is his roiling guts.

Sam eventually breaks the silence. “He said. . . he didn’t know for sure how long.”

“Right,” Jody says. “He’ll need some time.” She stands, her knees cracking in the silence, and she pulls Claire up and wraps a supportive arm around her waist. “You need food, and some more rest.”

“I wanna stay,” Claire says, shaking her head.

“Come on, honey,” Jody says, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I’m gonna feed you, and I’m gonna put you in bed. We’ll get you when Castiel’s awake.”

Too weak to properly resist, Claire lets Jody tug her out of the room.

Sam stays. He tries to catch Dean’s eye, but Dean can’t look away from Cas’ face.

At some point he’d grabbed onto Cas’ hand. It’s cold.

“He just needs time,” Sam tries, but his voice is wavering.

With his free hand, Dean pulls the chair up to the head of the bed and sits.

He waits.

If Dean had hated the infirmary before, he _loathes_ it now. It’s got stupid, ugly-ass brick walls, the lights are acidic and wash everything out, and it’s too damn quiet. Except when it’s too loud, and every rustle of his clothes and squeak of his chair echoes and rasps against the floor. To say nothing of the ticking clock, which Dean would rip off the wall if it wasn’t enclosed in one of those old cage things.

The first day is one of the longest of Dean’s entire life. He doesn’t relax for an instant – spends it perched on the edge of the chair, holding tension tight in his shoulders. His heart doesn’t stop hammering for a single minute, so by the time twenty-four hours rolls around he’s thoroughly exhausted despite not moving an inch.

Claire sleeps most of the day, but Jody and Sam sit with Dean for a while. Jody rubs a hand on his back and tries to coax him into sleeping or eating, maybe getting up just to stretch his legs, but Dean largely ignores her.

Sam knows better than to try.

Day two is just as uneventful, except now, the hope that had burned in Dean’s chest is starting to dwindle. He droops in his chair; his heart pumps along dully. His pulse still rockets up every now and then, when he thinks – imagines – he sees Cas’ face twitch or his hand move, but the adrenaline always fades after a breathless minute or two, leaving him a little bit emptier each time.

Cas’ hand is warmer now, but it’s possible that’s just because Dean hasn’t let it go.

He gets a few hours of sleep in here and there – little one or two hour chunks spent leaning forward in the chair with his head down on the mattress. When he wakes, he never feels rested, only guilty.

Jody and Sam still wait with him, but in turns now, as they start the massive clean-up job in the war room. Dean listens to them carting away old bricks and sweeping up glass.

He has no idea how they’re gonna fix the stairs.

Cas starts breathing on his own near the end of the third day. Dean’s in the infirmary alone, but he can hear voices drifting in from the war room when out of nowhere the machines start to beep and Cas convulses on the bed.

Dean’s on his feet in a heartbeat, yelling for the others. They all come running – Claire too, almost fully recovered now – and rush up to the bed to help.

Sam removes the tape and Dean pulls out the breathing tube as gently as he can, then quickly places the antique-looking oxygen mask over Cas’ face. His body wracks with coughs and Dean’s wide-eyed and breathless again as he waits – any second now – for Cas’ eyes to open.

The coughing stops, Cas drops back onto the mountain of pillows propping him up, chest rising and falling on its own, and then. . . nothing.

After a while there are general murmurs of disappointment from the others, and a conciliatory few pats on the shoulder as Dean slowly drops back down in his chair.

“It’s a good thing, man,” Sam says. “He’s getting better. It’s just taking time.”

Dean swallows, but doesn’t respond.

“Here.”

Dean startles at the bowl of cereal that suddenly appears directly in front of his face. He looks up to find Claire standing above him, holding a bowl of her own as well.

“I’m good,” Dean says, his voice dry and scratchy from disuse.

“Take it, or Jody’s gonna come in here with a funnel,” Claire says. She wafts it back and forth under his nose. “Seriously, I had the flu last year, and she practically did the whole airplane-spoon thing on me.”

Dean relents, taking the bowl and turning his mouth up into a half smile. Claire drops into the chair on the other side of the bed, and they sit together a while, silent save the occasional crunching of corn flakes.

“How you feelin,’ kid?” Dean eventually asks.

She shrugs. “Good. All back to normal.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Claire nods, and Dean shifts in his seat before returning his focus to Cas’ face.

“You know, I never really thanked you, Claire, not properly. You didn’t have to help him; no one would’ve blamed you if you didn’t want anything to do with him. Or any of us.”

It’s Claire who looks uncomfortable now. “Yeah, well. I’m a _really_ good person.”

Dean smiles and huffs out a breath through his nose. It’s not a laugh, not quite, but it’s close.

“It’s still, you know, complicated. But after everything, having him literally inside my head. . . I mean, it’s kinda hard to hate the guy.”

Dean looks over at her. “When he was in there, could you like, hear his thoughts or something?”

Claire shakes her head. “It wasn’t quite like that. I was just getting. . . impressions, I guess. I don’t think I was supposed to,” she continues, when Dean raises his eyebrows. “I think he wanted to shield me from all his stuff, but he didn’t have the strength for it.”

“What kind of stuff?” Dean asks, not really sure he wants to know the answer.

“Guilt, mostly,” Claire says, and Dean feels another blow hit his already battered heart. “About me, and my dad, and my mom too. And also you and Sam, and like a million other things I didn’t understand. Kind of everything.”

“Yeah,” Dean says bitterly. “Wonder where he picked that up.”

She gives him a look. “But I told you before, love too. For you, and for Sam. And me too.” She blushes. Dean smiles again, but she pushes on. “I dunno. I did hate him, for like, a really long time. But in the end, I think he’s just. . . _good_ , you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “I do.”

Claire gives him a small smile, and they lapse into silence again. After a few minutes, she tilts her head at Cas. “Looks like he’s better since yesterday. He’s got a bit of colour back in his cheeks.”

Dean nods absently.

She turns back to Dean across the bed. “I got this for a while. Why don’t you take a break?”

Dean shakes his head. “I’m gonna stay.”

“‘Kay look, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but you’re starting to smell like the inside of a gym bag. Just take a shower. I’ll be here.”

Dean leans down to sniff his shirt guiltily, then grimaces. “Alright. Ten minutes.”

“Might wanna make it twenty,” she says. “Just sayin.’”

Dean chuckles and stands, knees creaking. “Thanks, Claire.”

On the sixth day, Dean starts talking. He starts with encouragement, whispering soft endearments into Cas’ ears. He tries anger, but that only ends up making him feel worse. In the end, he sticks with unadulterated begging.

“You know, I never really asked for all that much. I never needed things to be perfect, at least not for me, anyway.” He studies Cas’ quiescent face and runs a thumb along the knuckles of his hand. “I wanted Sammy alive and happy, and as well-adjusted as I could manage it. I wanted the job, and I wanted to help people. I didn’t need to be recognized – hell, even thanked, really. And for a long time, I didn’t even think I needed to be happy. I guess in the end, I just wanted to stay alive long enough to keep _Sammy_ alive.”

Dean bring his free hand up to his face and rubs it across his chin, fingers rasping through the scruff he’s let grow in.

“But I’ve spent a hell of a lot of years not being happy. And _we’ve_ let the universe kick us in the crotch enough times. So now I’m asking for this. I’m _demanding_ this.”

Predictably, there’s no answer – from Cas _or_ from the universe.

Dean grits his teeth. “C’mon, Cas. You told me you were gonna fight, so fight. I’m right here waiting for you. You’re the toughest sonofabitch I’ve ever met, and you’re gonna wake up. I’m not gonna lose you; I love you too damn much to let that happen.”

When there’s still no reaction, his head drops down and he scrubs a hand through his hair, blinking away stupid, pointless tears. A long, shuddering sigh heaves out of his chest and he looks back up.

“ _Please_ , man. I don’t know if I’m really praying, here – I don’t know if you can hear me right now. Maybe I’m just talking to myself. But before, I asked you to have faith in me. So maybe it’s my turn. I’ve got faith in you, Cas. You and me, despite everything, we’ve got a long history of beating the odds. So how about – just one more time – you make the universe your bitch.”

Sam comes in sometime in the afternoon on day seven, and Dean looks up in time to watch his eyes rake critically over his face. Dean’s sure he looks like hell – he can’t remember when he ate last and his eyes are stinging with the effort of staying open.

“Don’t say it,” Dean says.

Sam looks pained as he steps up closer to the bed. “Alright, I won’t, but you know I want to.”

Dean nods. “Yep. Glad we sorted that out.”

Sam sighs and studies his face another moment. “Look, this sucks, and y’know, bad timing and everything, but. . . there’s a job. It’s just up in Kearney, or we’d let somebody else take it.”

Dean blinks. “A job?”

“Yeah. Werewolf, and tomorrow’s the full moon, so it’s y’know, time-sensitive.”

“Right.”

“Claire’s gonna stay with you,” Sam says reassuringly. “I mean, she says she’s back to normal, and she probably is, but just to be safe. Jody and I are just gonna run up there. Shouldn’t be more than a day. Hopefully less. Probably less.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, okay. Be safe.”

“Yeah, of course.” Sam’s been studiously ignoring the hospital bed, but as he turns to leave he stops, his eyes running over Cas’ body sadly. Suddenly he tilts his head, frowning, and nods to the hand Dean’s holding. “The marks, they’re fading.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, looking down at the hand too. The black symbol has turned dark red, slightly raised against the rest of his skin. “Noticed some time this morning.”

“That’s great!”

Dean sets his jaw, but nods again. “Yeah.” He doesn’t want to look into Sam’s hopeful eyes right now, so he turns back to Cas’ face. “Take care of yourself with the werewolf, Sammy.”

There’s a pause. “Yeah. We’ll be back before you know it. Try to eat something,” he says, then leaves the room.

True to Sam’s word, he and Jody are back less than a day later, and save the odd bruise they’re in good shape. They both stick their heads into the infirmary for a while, and all but force Dean into another shower. He comes back to his chair immediately after and finds a sandwich and a water bottle waiting for him, and he eats under Jody’s watchful gaze.

The day wears on; Sam, Jody, and Claire each take it in turns to sit with him a while, and he tolerates their occasional, gentle prodding for more sleep or food.

The next thing he knows, it’s late – at least according to the stupid ticking clock on the wall – and he’s alone again. He’s got a hell of a crick in his neck from resting his head on the stupid mattress, and he reaches over to the medicine cabinet on the wall for some aspirin. They’re running low; he’ll have to remind Sam to grab another bottle on his next supply run.

Once Dean knocks back the pills, he slips his hand into Cas’ again and studies the fading sigil. It’s faint pink now, but still raised and shiny like scar tissue, marring the skin. He hates it.

“Are you being creepy again?”

Dean’s heart stops.

He jerks his head up. Cas is looking at him through half-lidded eyes, the tiniest smile curving his lips.

Dean’s frozen. There’s a good chance he’s imagining this; he’s been in here for a long-ass time and he’s been talking to an unconscious guy, so it’s completely possible he’s finally cracked and his poor, grief-stricken mind has conjured up this little fantasy.

Then Cas twists his hand around and grips Dean’s fingers, and suddenly his heart is beating again.

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean chokes out. He’s standing now, both his hands coming up to frame Cas’ face. He locks onto deep blue eyes.

Cas looks right back at him. “Am I me?”

Dean’s kissing him, hard and desperate, before he makes the conscious decision to move. Cas’ mouth is warm; he’s solid and awake and _here_ and he’s kissing Dean back. Without breaking away Dean pulls him up to a sitting position on the bed, and Cas’ hands come up to Dean’s neck, his fingertips drifting through the hair at the back of his head.

Dean’s a drowning man taking his first gulp of air; he’s drinking his first sip of water after a month in the desert – he’s every goddamn cliché in the book and he doesn’t give a shit because it’s the truth. He’s been _starving_ for this.

 _God_ , he had better not be fucking dreaming.

He’s light-headed – maybe due to his bounding heart or happy delirium, or maybe just oxygen deprivation – so he pulls away to gasp in a few lungfuls of air and look at Cas some more.

Cas looks a bit dizzy too, his eyes on Dean’s mouth and his thumb running along Dean’s jaw. “You haven’t shaved,” he mumbles. Then he stops, seems to focus a little more, and looks back up to meet Dean’s gaze. “How long?”

Dean swallows. “Nine – nine days.”

Cas’ eyes fill with apology, but Dean just sits down on the mattress and leans back in to kiss him again. He drags his thumbs along Cas’ cheeks and presses close enough their foreheads rest together.

It’s way too easy to get lost in this, so after a minute he pulls back and finds Cas’ eyes. “ _God_ , Cas. Are you okay?”

Cas gives him a small smile and nods. “Yeah, I’m okay. Tired, but okay.” He pauses then, and his gaze turns concerned. “What about Claire?”

“She’s good, she’s fine,” Dean says. “Back to a hundred percent.”

Cas sighs. “Good.”

There’s a bark of relieved laughter from behind them, and they both turn up to see Sam in the doorway, Jody and Claire behind him.

“I thought I heard talking.” Sam is _beaming_ , and he crosses the room in three strides. Dean reluctantly pulls away from the bed, but keeps a supportive hand on Cas’ upper back as Sam leans down and engulfs Cas in a hug, squashing him with his broad arms. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“Hello, Sam. You too,” Cas says, and Sam chuckles and pulls away.

Cas smiles at him, then turns to Claire and Jody in the doorway. “You stayed,” he says disbelievingly.

Claire’s running across the room and throwing her arms around him in the next moment, her eyes squeezing shut. “‘Course we did, dumbass.”

Cas looks thoroughly surprised, but also rather touched, and after a brief hesitation he hugs Claire back, tucking his chin over her shoulder.

“It’s nice to see you again, or I guess for the first time, or something,” Jody says, moving down into the room too. She tilts her head and raises a slightly puzzled eyebrow. “Gotta say, the voice isn’t what I was expecting.”

Cas huffs one of his quiet, barely-there laughs, and Dean’s heart swoops.

Claire eventually releases Cas and steps back from the bed. She glances at Dean before finding Cas’ eyes again. “We’ll talk later,” she says, then turns and starts prodding Sam in the arm with one finger. “But it’s almost midnight, and we should probably get out of here for a while. Dean looks ready to combust.”

Dean feels heat flush his face, but Sam just beams at him again. “Mm, yeah. Good thinking. We’ll see you later, Cas. C’mon guys,” he says, and starts shepherding the others out of the room.

Sam, Jody, and Claire haven’t cleared the doorway before Cas is reaching up with two hands and pulling Dean down again, pressing their lips together insistently.

Dean lingers a moment before pulling back gently. “Can you stand?”

Cas nods and starts to swing his legs off the side of the bed.

“C’mon then,” Dean says. “I _hate_ it in here.”

He helps Cas up, then wraps a hand around his waist. Cas slings his arm around Dean’s shoulders, and they slowly make their way down the hall to their room.

Once they’re over the threshold Dean shuts the door with a kick, and Cas is on him, both arms now wrapping across Dean’s shoulders and neck as his lips move, demanding. Dean is getting lost in him again – the scent of him, the feel of their bodies pressed together, the slide of their tongues.

“God, I missed you,” Dean breathes before kissing him again, and he moves his hands from Cas’ waist to start tugging at the buttons of his shirt.

Cas’ knees buckle and he stumbles forward, breaking the kiss.

“Whoa, hey.” Dean grabs him again, supporting his weight. He presses his face into Cas’ hair and closes his eyes. “Sorry, man. You’re still wiped from all this, we can – this can wait –”

“Dean,” Cas pants. One hand snakes down Dean’s torso and presses firmly against his half-hard cock. “ _Touch me_.”

Fucking hell. Dean’s never gonna _stop_.

Biting back a groan, he walks them to the bed, making sure to keep Cas upright and balanced. The backs of Cas’ knees hit the mattress and Dean follows him down, stretching out over top of him and kissing him deeply. Cas keeps his arms locked around Dean’s neck until Dean decides there’s not _nearly_ enough skin exposed here and he pulls away to stand.

He strips himself first, as quickly as he can, tugging his shirt over his head and pushing his jeans to the floor. He fights his shoes and socks off, but that’s all he can manage in one go and he crawls back over Cas and into his waiting arms.

His mouth finds Cas’ again, then breaks away to kiss his cheeks and his chin, then moves down the column of his neck. He presses his lips to every bit of skin he can find and he’s about to start unbuttoning Cas’ shirt when he stops.

The sigil Avishag’s spell burned onto Cas’ chest has faded to pink, just like on his hands, but it’s still there. Dean’s eyes close and his heart aches again at the memory of Cas lying in the war room, of seeing him fall to the warehouse floor, of days and days beside him in the infirmary.

A shaky breath leaves him, but then he feels fingers push through his hair. He looks up into Cas’ gentle eyes, and after a long moment his seizing heart calms.

Slowly, Dean leans back down and presses a soft kiss to the scar, dead centre of the circle. He reaches for one hand, then the other, and kisses those marks too. Cas watches him, eyes dark but so full of emotion that Dean almost can’t meet them. He does though, because he’s gone almost two weeks without seeing that look on Cas’ face and he didn’t realize until now just how much he craves it.

They’re both still for almost a minute, suspended in time, until Cas gets impatient and draws him back down to seal their mouths together. For a while they just kiss, slow and sweet, then Cas tilts his hips up to grind against Dean’s thigh and the heat returns.

Cas’ desperate grinding has Dean’s arousal flaring hot and his own cock straining for attention, so he moves back to Cas’ chest to finally start on his shirt. He drops a slow, wet kiss for every button, all the way down to the line of hair below Cas’ navel. His tongue teases there for a while, then he tugs the shirttails out from Cas’ pants. Cas rolls and shifts until his shirt is free from under his back and yanked all the way off his arms, then his hands come down to tangle in Dean’s hair.

There’s a particular spot below Cas’ ribs that always makes him whine, and Dean finds it now, alternately dragging his teeth across the skin lightly and soothing it with his tongue. Cas’ fingers tighten in Dean’s hair, but then the sound he makes causes Dean to pause. Curious, he dips his head again, and Cas gasps and twitches away.

“Cas, are you laughing?”

“It’s – it’s your beard,” he pants. “I think it. . .”

Dean grins broadly. “Tickles?”

Cas doesn’t answer, just glares down at him with dark eyes.

“Oh man,” Dean says, still grinning. “There are a whole _ton_ of avenues we’re gonna explore with that one.”

“Fine,” Cas says impatiently. “But later.” Then he tugs on Dean’s hair sharply.

Dean groans and starts moving again, yanking at Cas’ belt and pulling his fly down. He leans back on his haunches and Cas helps pull his pants and boxers all the way off to expose his hard and already leaking cock. Dean drags his own boxers down as well, and then finally, _finally_ , they’re both completely naked and rolling against each other on the mattress.

Their mouths meet again, hands wrap around backs and into hair, and their legs tangle as they shift and grind. Dean wants everything – he wants to take Cas into his mouth, he wants Cas’ tongue on every part of him, he wants to feel Cas moving inside him. But right now, _nothing_ can feel as good as this: the two of them pressed together tightly, not an inch of space between them as they twist together in the sheets.

Cas starts to moan into his mouth, his leg hitching up around Dean’s hip and pulling him in for more pressure. Dean’s hands haven’t stopped moving; they run up and down Cas’ back, to his ass and thighs, re-learning the flex and give of his muscles.

Somehow, Dean had never properly appreciated Cas’ skin – the smooth expanse of it, soft and unblemished. He thinks he could spend the rest of his life like this, wrapped close and just _feeling_ Cas as their mouths move in tandem. Then Cas starts mirroring Dean, his own broad palms trailing fire over Dean’s skin, lighting him up with the smallest touch. 

The rhythm of their hips starts to stutter and falter before too long, and Dean starts panting against Cas’ lips, cursing and whispering his name until the tension snaps and he spills against Cas’ stomach and chest. Cas only lasts a few seconds longer and then he’s gasping too, hips jerking and arms squeezing tight around Dean’s back.

Despite the mess between them they don’t break apart. Their bodies continue to rock together, slowly coming down as their kisses turn lazy. Eventually Cas sighs against Dean’s lips and leans away enough to breathe. Dean doesn’t let him move much farther away though, pushing their foreheads together and bumping their noses gently.

Cas opens his eyes, and Dean looks back at him, then brings one hand from Cas’ hip up to trace lines along his face. Dean maps his jaw and the creases of his forehead, then brushes a thumb along Cas’ cheekbone.

Cas’ eyes start to drift closed after a while, and Dean pauses his ministrations regretfully. Watching Cas sleep is a bit too familiar right now, but he’s clearly exhausted. They both are.

“You should sleep,” Dean whispers.

Cas finds Dean’s eyes again. “You too. You didn’t get much rest, did you?”

“No,” Dean shakes his head minutely. “I didn’t want to come back here without you.”

Cas smiles gently. “I’m here now. And I think I succeeded in ‘making the universe my bitch.’”

Dean grins. “You heard me.”

“Yes.” Cas nods, eyes warm. “I heard you. Always.”

Dean leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips. “Good.” Cas’ eyes are drooping again, so Dean pulls away. “Sleep. And then we’ll stay in this bed for another week, if you want. However long it takes you to get back up to full power.”

“I won’t,” Cas says.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“I won’t get back up to full power.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean frowns, and his eyes go wary and concerned.

Cas is smiling though, and he brings his own hand up to Dean’s face, tracing his thumb over the lines at Dean’s temple and threading fingers through his hair. “Healing my body – it worked, the poison’s gone. But my grace was still. . . damaged.”

And just like that, Dean’s heart turns cold again. “Damaged?” Cas nods. “What does that mean?”

“It’ll. . . drain away.”

Dean tries to swallow past the lump of fear. “How long?”

“A year,” he says, like it’s nothing. “Maybe two. I can’t know for sure.”

Dean definitely doesn’t want to know the answer to this, but he asks anyway. “And then what?”

Cas tilts his head. “If I’m lucky, another forty years?”

Dean’s brain sort of stalls. He starts blinking rapidly, but Cas just smiles again and pulls him in.

Cas kisses him patiently, waiting for the pieces to clunk together, and then finally Dean pulls back. “Human. You’ll be human.”

“Yeah. More or less,” Cas says.

Dean sucks in a breath and stares, eyes darting back and forth between Cas.’ His expression is strangely serene.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says.

Cas drops his smile and looks back at Dean intently. “I’m not. Not if it means I get to be here with you.”

Fireworks go off in Dean’s chest and he yanks Cas back in, mouths slotting together again and limbs intertwining.

They fall asleep eventually, but they don’t untangle until well after dawn.

The next morning finds them both in the kitchen, Cas smiling gently and Dean on Cloud frickin’ Nine as he chops up peppers and onions. Cas is wearing a t-shirt and a pair of Dean’s plaid pajama pants, and leaning his back against the counter a few feet away. Occasionally he sneaks pieces of shredded cheese from the mountain beside the stove.

“Dude, you keep doing that there’s not gonna be any left for the eggs,” Dean says. He points to the frying pan on the stovetop. “Now flip.”

Cas narrows his eyes and pops another bit of cheese into his mouth, but he obeys, grabbing up the tongs and flipping the bacon. Once he finishes he picks up another piece of cheese, but before Dean can chew him out he raises his fingers to Dean’s mouth to give it to him.

Dean rolls his eyes but takes it, parting his lips and drawing Cas’ fingers into his mouth. Cas’ eyes go satisfyingly dark.

“Whoa.”

Claire is at the kitchen door, eyes round as she takes in the spread already out on the table. There’s a serving plate stacked high with pancakes, another covered in sausages, and even a bowl of oranges that Cas had cut into wedges for Sam.

Dean smiles at her, but Cas looks uncomfortable and takes a step back. “Good morning, Claire.”

“Yeah, hey,” she says, looking kind of amused, and then Sam and Jody come in behind her.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Sam says emphatically, and reaches for a sausage without bothering with a knife and fork. “How you feelin,’ Cas?”

“Good,” Cas says, then he reaches over and scoops up the chopped onions, dropping them into another pan to sizzle.

“You’re cooking,” Claire says. She looks up at Cas and raises an eyebrow. “You cook?”

Cas inclines his head. “Not that well. Certainly not as well as Dean. But definitely better than Sam.”

Dean snorts and glances at Sam, who is now gnawing on a pancake with a blissed-out expression. “Dude, I’m not even mad.”

“Gee, think there’ll be enough?” Jody asks, grabbing a stack of plates from the cabinet.

“Yeah, we uh, kinda went a little overboard,” Dean says. 

Sam closes his eyes and hums. “Not even mad.”

Dean barely stops touching Cas all through breakfast. He brushes their shoulders together as they stand at the stove. There’s a hand on Cas’ lower back as they ferry the bacon and eggs over to the others. When they finally sit down, Dean tangles their feet together below the table. And he’s grinning like an idiot the whole time, watching Cas talking with Jody and smiling shyly at Claire.

But he can’t help but remember just how much they lucked out on this one. How twenty-four hours ago, he felt completely hollow, sitting in a hard-backed chair with the last vestiges of his hope trickling away. But then Cas will turn sideways and look at him, and a bit of the hurt in his chest will ease.

When they finish, the others stand from the table to start clearing up, so Dean leans over and drops a peck on Cas’ cheek. Cas smiles, but then his eyes dart over to Claire, who’s standing by Jody at the sink and drying dishes. If she noticed, she doesn’t react.

Jody and Claire are packed up to leave about an hour later. They’d stay longer, but Jody’s repeated absences from the sheriff’s department are starting to draw attention.

They cluster in the war room to say their goodbyes. It’s been mostly cleaned of all the rubble and broken glass, but there’s still the odd pile of metal and the tabletop is going to need replacing.

Jody hugs Sam, then a reasonably surprised Cas. She wraps her arms around Dean last, then pulls back and smiles broadly.

“What?” Dean asks.

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just. . . I was watching you this morning. And it’s just really good to see you happy, kiddo.”

Dean feels some heat in his cheeks, but he nods. “Yeah. Thanks, Jody. For being here, for helping with the witch. For everything.”

Jody smiles again and steps back. Claire’s just finished hugging Sam, and she steps over to Cas, who’s looking a little nervous. “So,” she says.

“Um, just so you know,” Cas starts, “you had a small flaw in your heart.”

Claire blinks, very obviously wrong-footed. “What?”

Cas nods earnestly. “You uh, you probably hadn’t noticed, but there was a slight arrhythmia. It might have become a problem as you got older.” Claire looks at him blankly. “I fixed it for you.”

Jesus Christ, Dean is so fucking gone on him.

Claire still looks a little weirded out, but she nods. “Um. . . thank you.”

Cas swallows. “Of course.”

After a moment, Claire reaches up and socks him on the arm. “So, that’s for making me drink coffee.”

Cas looks surprised for a second, then he grimaces. “I’m sorry. And Claire. . . just, thank you. I’ll never be able to say it properly, but –”

“Here’s the thing,” Claire cuts him off. “I forgive you. For everything. You and me – we’re okay, really.”

“You don’t have to be okay with me, Claire,” Cas says. “You don’t have to forgive me. After everything I’ve done, I can’t ask that of you.”

“Okay, look. Before, when you were riding around up here, Dean said that he looked at my face and saw you. Well, I look at you, and I see my dad.”

Cas looks pained, and he casts his eyes down.

“I think I always will, and I don’t know how to turn that off. I don’t know if I want to.” She pauses there and takes a breath. “But I think it’s okay. It’s a piece of him, still here, even though he’s gone.”

She looks over at Dean, then back to Cas again. “I mean, there’s some stuff _here_ –” she waggles a finger between the two of them “– that I am just _not_ gonna think about, like ever.”

Dean and Cas are both blushing now, but Claire pushes on.

“And the whole thing’s still kinda creepy and morbid, when you think about it, but. . . that’s kind of our lives, right?”

Sam chuckles, and Dean doesn’t fight the smile that pulls on his lips. “Yeah, kinda is.”

Claire nods. “And anyway, it’s not like it’s all bad. In the end, I got a mom, and a sister –” she looks at Jody over her shoulder, and the two of them share a smile. Then Claire turns back around and makes a face at them. “And like, three weird uncles.”

Dean laughs outright at that, then pulls her into a tight hug.

She pulls away after a minute then moves over to wrap her arms around Cas too, and he closes his eyes and rests his chin on the top of her head.

She lingers there a long while, then finally clears her throat and releases him. “Alright losers, let’s cut the sap. We should get going.” She nods at Jody and they both turn and start up the staircase. Once they get to the landing Claire stops and waves a hand. “Take it easy, guys. And try not to piss off any more witches for a while.”

“Yeah, we’ll try,” Cas says. “See you later, Claire.”

She nods a final time, then she and Jody are gone.

They stand in silence for a moment, then Sam reaches over and pats Dean’s shoulder. “Alright, we’ve still got work to do cleaning up in here, and both of you skipped out on most of the heavy lifting already.”

“Uh, we were a little busy, Sam,” Dean says.

“Yeah, whatever. Come on, there’s a table in one of the storage rooms I think we can bring up as a replacement.”

Dean narrows his eyes, then turns around and studies the mangled metal behind them. “It’s a shame, Cas. We never got to have sex on this table.”

“Oh, gross!”

Cas nods thoughtfully. “True. But there’s always the library.”

Sam throws up his hands dramatically and starts off down the hall. “Damnit, I didn’t realize how good I had it the last two weeks.”

Dean laughs, and pulls Cas in for a kiss. They stay wrapped up tight, bodies pressed close, and they don’t follow Sam for a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, dear friends! I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> I spend too much time on tumblr, so please feel free to come say hi to me [there!](https://pantheonofdiscord.tumblr.com)
> 
> Title, chapter titles, and Avishag’s line “whispers that comfort us out of the dark” are all taken from the Rudyard Kipling poem [En-dor.](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/En-Dor)
> 
> Also, the Witch of Endor is a real Biblical figure. I Samuel, 28:7-25, if you’re interested.


End file.
